Show HN: An open-source app for IELTS preparation

IELTS Prep, also called BandReady, is a free, open-source desktop app for practicing all four IELTS skills. It aims to recreate exam conditions rather than offer a general chatbot: learners get timed tests, authentic question formats, criterion-based feedback, and progress tracking. Speaking practice uses a live AI voice examiner for full mock exams or shorter drills, with transcripts, replayable audio, and estimated scores supported by quoted evidence. Writing covers Academic and General Training tasks, with pre-checks, inline corrections, rewrite practice, and model answers. Reading and listening provide full tests and targeted drills, automatic marking, and explanations of answer traps; listening audio is generated on the user’s computer.

The app also includes vocabulary review based on a learner’s mistakes, grammar lessons, reference material, pronunciation drills, and a placement test that builds an adaptive study plan. Its central promise is privacy and local control: an Electron interface and Python sidecar store recordings, transcripts, and scores on the user’s machine, require no account, and send nothing to a service unless the user configures a cloud model for text-based marking. Local models and offline operation are supported, though the first launch needs internet access to download model weights. Installation currently requires building from source or running a release workflow, and the app has no screenshots yet. Its AI-generated band scores are practice estimates, not official IELTS results, and the project is unaffiliated with IELTS organizations.