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Most candidates prepare for IELTS Writing by memorizing templates and "advanced" vocabulary. Examiners don't score templates — they score four official criteria, each worth exactly 25% of your band. Understanding what each criterion rewards (and punishes) is the fastest way to stop losing marks you don't have to lose.
The four criteria at a glance
How the band score is calculated
Each criterion is graded 0–9, and your Writing band for the task is the average of the four, rounded to the nearest half band. Example from a real scoring session:
Two practical consequences. First, one weak criterion caps your whole score — a band-6 grammar drags an otherwise band-8 essay to 7. Second, you don't need to be perfect everywhere: raising your weakest criterion by one band lifts the average faster than polishing your strongest.
Also remember the weighting between tasks: Task 2 counts twice as much as Task 1 in your final Writing score.
Task Response: the criterion most candidates underestimate
To score high, the examiner must see that the task is appropriately addressed and sufficiently explored, the questions are answered directly, a clear, fully developed position is presented, and ideas are relevant and well supported. The most common band-6 trap: answering only half of a two-part question, or stating an opinion in the introduction and never developing it.
Coherence and Cohesion: organization the reader can feel
This criterion rewards logical progression (one idea per paragraph, each paragraph with a clear central topic) and natural use of linking devices. Overusing connectors ("Moreover… Furthermore… Additionally…" in every sentence) is penalized at band 7+ just like underusing them — cohesion should be invisible.
Lexical Resource: precision beats decoration
Examiners reward range used naturally: topic-specific vocabulary, correct collocations, and paraphrase of the task wording. Memorized "band 9 words" used slightly wrongly cost more than simpler words used precisely — "less common lexical items with awareness of style" is the band-7 phrase in the official descriptors.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy: error-free sentences count
Two things matter: variety (complex structures — conditionals, relative clauses, passives — attempted, not just simple sentences) and accuracy (the proportion of error-free sentences). At band 6 "some complex forms are attempted"; at band 7 "frequent error-free sentences" appear. That measurable difference is why counting your error-free sentences is one of the most useful self-checks.
What this means for your preparation
- Diagnose per criterion, not by overall feel — find which of the four is your floor.
- Fix the floor first: +1 band on your weakest criterion = +0.25 on the task, usually more in practice.
- Practice in exam format and check every attempt against the four criteria, not against "does it sound good".
The official band descriptors are public — IELTS publishes them for Task 2 and Task 1. Every claim in this article comes from those documents.
Practice what you just read: write a real exam task and get an instant band score with per-criterion feedback in the SmallTalk2Me AI Writing checker — your first check is free.
