IELTS Writing Task 2
IELTS Writing Overview: What you need to do!
Last updated on September 23, 2020 by Scott Somerville
In this lesson I will give you an overview of the IELTS Writing Task 2 and go through each of the four categories that the examiner is looking at. We will end with some advice on what you should focus on and where you should worry less.
So you might be wondering what exactly is a good IELTS essay? What is the examiner looking for when they read it?
We are going to answer both of these questions and look at how you can realistically reach your goals.
Before we start though, I would like you to think about what it is that makes a good piece of writing for you.
The Four Categories
I’m sure that you are probably thinking about grammar and vocabulary and yes, these are both very important. There are, however, two other categories that the examiner is looking at: task achievement and coherence and cohesion. There will be lessons on each of these categories, but for now we just want to have a look at what these categories mean.
Task Achievement
This is simply did you do all that was asked for in the task and how well did you do it. This is broken down further into more specific parts that we shall deal with in another lesson.
- Coherence and Cohesion
Coherence is about whether your essay is understandable and makes sense to the reader. Cohesion is referring to the overall structure of your essay and whether it is easy to follow.
- Lexical Resource
This covers the vocabulary that you use and whether it is appropriate and impressive enough.
- Grammatical Range and Accuracy
No surprises that here they are looking at the grammar you use: is it correctly used and are there enough complex structures?
What you can work on
So where do you start? Which is most important?
For the final band score, be that a Band 3 or a Band 9, each is given equal weight by the examiner. So that is 25% for each category. For the student writing the essay, however, there are two categories that are easier to focus on. These are the first two categories: Task Achievement and Coherence and Cohesion. This is because many of the specific points the examiner is looking for are true for academic essays written in any language. These are not testing your level of English. They are testing your ability to write an academic essay.
Be realistic
So how can we use all this to get the band you need?
Focus first on Task achievement: is your essay covering everything that the Task is asking of you and are you doing it well. Secondly does your essay have a clear structure that is easy to follow? This is something that you can get right regardless of whether you need a Band 5 or a Band 8. Every student can do it! You can do it! And in our next lesson we will start to look at how.
One final note: if you have an IELTS exam in two weeks is not very likely that you will make a great improvement to your vocabulary or grammar, but you can make sure your are completing the task that was set and your essay has a good structure. Being realistic about what you can achieve in the time you have is very important.
You can find a complete list of what you need to do here.