Level B2 (approx. band 5.5-6.5) · Academic and General Training Many candidates believe they must sound British or American to score well. So they spend months copying an accent, and they ignore the things that are actually assessed. Pronunciation is one of the four equally weighted Speaking criteria, a quarter of your score. In this episode: • Intelligibility, not accent • Individual sounds and word stress • Sentence stress and intonation • Chunking and connected speech • Listening lab • Language bridge • Practice • Self-check questions with answers Key points: • Accent is not scored; intelligibility and a range of features are. • Get the stressed syllable right first; it helps the listener find the word. • Stress the important words, and let your voice rise and fall with your meaning. • Pause between ideas, not between words, and let words link. IELTS Complete Course: a self-study podcast from A1 to C2 for Academic and General Training. Listen, pause and answer, then take the 52-question quiz. Audio voiced with AI from an original script by Dr. Rashmi R Nair. Independent course, not affiliated with the IELTS test owners.