Duolingo English Test · Online and adaptive
The Duolingo English Test is the cheap, fast one — with conditions attached.
Book it tonight, sit it at your desk, get a score in a couple of days, for a fraction of what a centre-based test costs. In exchange you accept a computer-adaptive test with no human examiner, strict proctoring rules, and an acceptance list you must check before you pay.
Score scale
125 is roughly IELTS band 7.0. Scores move in steps of five, so a single IELTS band covers only about two steps of this scale.
- Score scale
- 10–160
- Length
- ~1 hour
- Delivery
- Online, proctored
- Results
- Usually ~2 days
- Validity
- Normally 2 years
Who sits it
Duolingo English Test is the right test for some people, not everyone.
At home, on demand, about an hour
Sit this test if you are
- Universities that publish a Duolingo minimum — check the list before booking
- Candidates with no test centre within reasonable travel
- Anyone who needs a score in days and a second attempt soon after
- Budget-constrained applicants: it costs a fraction of a centre-based test
Confirm the test is accepted before you book. The university, employer or immigration authority names which ones it takes, and they are not interchangeable.
Test structure
What you sit, in order.
Timings are the published ranges for Duolingo English Test. Exam formats are revised periodically — confirm the current structure with your test centre when you book.
Adaptive section
~45 minutes
Short interactive tasks that get harder when you answer well and easier when you do not — read-aloud, listen-and-type, complete the sentence, spot the real words, describe a photo. There is no fixed set of questions, so no two tests are the same.
Writing and speaking sample
~10 minutes
A written response and a recorded video interview, sent unscored to the institutions you nominate. They are read by a person even though they do not move your number.
Proctoring rules
Throughout
One face in frame, eyes on screen, no notes, no second monitor, no leaving the room. Sessions are reviewed after the fact and results are withheld when the rules were broken — this is where most failed attempts actually come from.
Score comparison
What Duolingo English Test is worth in IELTS bands.
Scores are reported in steps of five, so the scale is coarser than it looks — one band of IELTS covers roughly two DET steps. Acceptance is the thing to verify first: far fewer institutions and almost no immigration authorities take this test compared with IELTS.
| DET overall | IELTS band |
|---|---|
| 155–160 | 8.5–9.0 |
| 145–150 | 8.0 |
| 135–140 | 7.5 |
| 125–130 | 7.0 |
| 115–120 | 6.5 |
| 105–110 | 6.0 |
| 95–100 | 5.5 |
| 85–90 | 5.0 |
Indicative comparison only. No test score converts into another, and no institution accepts a converted score in place of the test it asked for.
Task types
Every task you will meet.
The full set of question and task types used across Duolingo English Test. Knowing which ones cost you marks is the difference between practising and just re-sitting.
Preparing here
What carries over from IELTS practice.
We do not run a Duolingo-format adaptive test. The band you get from a full IELTS mock here is the most reliable free indication of where you would land, using the comparison table above.
Listen and type is dictation
Spelling counts, exactly as it does in IELTS Listening. The same habit of writing the word you actually heard, spelled correctly, is what earns the mark.
One minute of unbroken speech
The speaking tasks are short monologues from a prompt — the IELTS Part 2 long turn in miniature. Our speaking feedback measures the pauses and fillers that cost you here.
Adaptive means level, not luck
An adaptive test finds your ceiling fast. Knowing your IELTS band from a full mock is the cheapest way to predict where that ceiling sits before you pay for a test.
Find out where you stand first.
A full mock under exam conditions gives you a band, and the table above turns that band into a realistic DET overall target. The free plan includes one every month.