One of the biggest challenges that students typically face in the exam is the IELTS Task 2 score in writing; and yes it is probably the most difficult to improve, but no fear we are here to help you through with a comprehensive range of tips — all completely free.
Understand the exam
The first thing to realise is the basics, for Task 2 you will be presented with a ‘discursive’ essay question, which means you will be asked to write a formal essay about an aspect or various aspects of a specific topic.
The whole writing test is 1 hour, and the recommended time that you should spend on Task 2 is 40 minutes.
You should write a minimum of 250 words.
What the examiner is looking for!
The examiner is looking for an essay.
How is the writing test scored?
The exam is scored using the ‘Band score’ criteria which have been developed over many years by Cambridge and its partners, there are 4 bands:
Task Response / Achievement, Coherence & Cohesion, Lexical Resource, and Grammar.
The examiner will look at the most suitable level for each band that fits what you have written and award you that band score for each of the four. The rule is that to be awarded a particular band level, the writing must fit all the positive statements of the band descriptors. The scores are then averaged (and therefore are worth 25% each) to give you a total score for your Task 2 essay.
Finally, your score in Task 2 will be added to your score in Task 1. However, the scores are weighted 33%: 66%. So Task 2 carries 2/3s of the total. So if you do better in Task 2 then this will benefit your score rather than the other way around, and for this reason, it is worth spending the time preparing for Task 2 writing so that you can maximize your score.
Many students ask about the examiners and if they are giving the correct scores – the examiners are internally monitored for every session they mark – if they make errors there is a set of procedures that they must go through and if they are found to make a serious error they may even be prevented from correcting until certain standards are met. There is also an internal mechanism that is used by test providers which check the scores examiners have given for each session and so acts as a safety net for a candidate’s writing, so you can have a high level of confidence that the score you receive is correct. More often than not the problem lies with the candidate and the way he or she has prepared which usually does not match the conditions in the exam on the day and therefore the performance is poor — if you want to practice under exam conditions you can sign up and get it here.
Having said that there are some exceptions — find out more about how some types of examiners use the band scores for IELTS Task 2 essays, why they do this, and what you can do to avoid the problem.
Learn techniques for the exam
Time management
One of the biggest challenges for a student of the IELTS writing exam is to be able to complete both Task 1 and Task 2 within the time limit. The truth is that time is short and there are a lot of skills that you must have to ensure that you can write a good response and one that will give you the band score you deserve.
Set time limits for various parts of your writing and stick to them — find out what works best for you so that you are able to complete both Tasks on time. For example, many students actually start with Task 2 and then complete Task 1 — just to guarantee that the task that carries more weight gets done. To find out more about how to manage your time in the writing exam, you can watch our free video.
In the exam, you will have a clock in front of you, but the exam officials will not announce any times during the exam — you will have to manage your time yourself. You will need to glance at the clock every so often to check that you have not exceeded your targets.
Understand the question
If I had to choose the biggest error that students make in their writing Task 2 it would be the fact that too many students don’t spend time analysing the question, either they don’t know how to analyse it or they don’t know how important it is to do so.
Many students, under the pressure of the exam, will look at the question see the general topic and jump straight into writing the essay, thinking the essay is asking about that general topic. The result is that they end up not answering the question properly and score poorly.
Plan your answer
Another common mistake made by many students is not preparing what they are going to write, and so write whatever ‘off the top their head’ — whatever comes into their head while they’re writing.
Spending time planning helps you to generate ideas and organize them so that when you write you can focus on your language and how you are phrasing your ideas and what kind of grammar and vocab you want to use.
See how to do this here.
Learn how to structure your essay
The first important basic is to understand that every Task 2 essay must have an:
- Introduction:
This is where you introduce to the reader what you are going to write about in the essay and there are a different way to do this, read more about introductions. - Body:
This is the main part of the essay, in it, you should put forward your ideas and support them with more detail and examples, read more about the body. - Conclusion:
Here you will summarise what you have already written in the body, read more about conclusions here
Identify the weak areas of your writing
A lot of people are not aware of what they are doing wrong and continue to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. Unfortunately, they often continue to enter the exam over and over again and end up wasting a lot of time and money, all because they didn’t take the right steps before they entered the exam.
So obviously the best thing to do is invest your time wisely and prepare for the exam, it is also really important to find someone reliable to get advice from, so you must find someone who knows what he or she is talking about – there are too many so called ‘IELTS experts’ out there all promising things or offering their own advice, or tips that are plain wrong.
Improve your general level of English
On many occasions students wanting to take IELTS don’t understand how grammar and vocabulary are assessed. In fact these are the cornerstones of the exam, a student who can only write basic sentences and words, no matter how good his or her understanding of the exam and exam techniques will not be able to achieve a high score particularly in the Writing and Speaking.
Practice as much possible
No need to state that practice is a key part of preparing for the IELTS exam, and it always amazed how many people think that they don’t need to. Let me tell you that native speakers themselves sometimes have to take the test, and even they prepare for it.
A good strategy for Task 2 writing is to research and prepare for topics that you are unfamiliar with, but of course there is no guarantee that preparing for certain topics means that one of those topics will come up in the exam. In fact, you need to be ready with a variety of strategies to deal with any eventuality.
Get the right feedback
Practice is all well and good, but the truth is that without proper feedback it is difficult to know where you are, what you are doing right, what you need to improve and therefore whether you need more practice to achieve your score.
Learn the different question types and how to answer them
There are several different question types that reoccur time and again in IELTS writing Task 2 exam sessions. Learning how to identify them and how you should organize your essay is a must. This all helps you to answer the question more appropriately and to organize your points through the body.
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