Reading time: 6 minutes
Most Task 2 essays fail on time, not on English: 15 minutes lost to a slow start, no plan, no proofread, and a conclusion written in panic. Here is the time plan we teach in our IELTS Writing course: 1 minute to read, 4 to plan, 30 to write, 5 to check and exactly what to do in each phase.
Why start the Writing section with Task 2
You are allowed to do the tasks in any order — and Task 2 contributes twice as much as Task 1 to your Writing score. Starting with the essay guarantees your highest-value task gets your freshest 40 minutes.
Minute 0-1: Read and mark the task
Read the prompt once, underlining the key nouns and verbs, and every actual question. Most prompts contain 2–3 distinct questions — each needs its own answer. Misreading here is the single most expensive mistake in the exam: a beautiful essay on the wrong question scores band 5 for Task Response.
Minutes 1-5: Plan (yes, four full minutes)
- Decide your position — one sentence, stated in your head before anything else.
- List possible arguments quickly (1 minute, no filtering).
- Select the 2–3 strongest and attach one example to each.
- Sketch the paragraph map: introduction → argument 1 → argument 2 (→ counterpoint if needed) → conclusion.
A working structure by word count: introduction ≈35 words, each body paragraph ≈90 (topic sentence + development + example), conclusion ≈35. That lands you safely above the 250-word minimum with room to develop ideas properly.
Minutes 5-35: Write from the plan
With a plan, writing is transcription plus style: academic register (no contractions, no vague "stuff/things", no emotional questions to the reader), linking used where logic needs it, and brainstormed vocabulary actually deployed. Do not edit while drafting — mid-sentence rewrites are where the 30 minutes disappear.
Minutes 35-40: Proofread, the cheapest marks in the exam
Five minutes of checking reliably rescues half a band: misprints and spelling, repeated words (swap for paraphrase), subject–verb agreement, articles, and your personal error list. You are not re-writing — you are harvesting error-free sentences, which is precisely what the band-7 grammar descriptor counts.
Training the timing
The plan feels tight the first three times — that is normal. Practice full 40-minute runs rather than untimed essays: timing is a skill, and it only develops under the clock. Early on, allow yourself 50 minutes and shrink to 40 across a week of attempts.
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.
