When preparing for the IELTS writing test, the most intelligent place to start is to understand how the essays will be marked. Students can easily avoid common mistakes and achieve a 7.0 or higher by fully understanding the 4 IELTS score components.

If you want to score well, understand the IELTS writing criteria first. In this post, we will look at each category and provide ways to boost your test score.

The Four Criteria 

The marking criteria fall into the following four equally weighted categories, each one makes up 25% of your overall writing score: 

* Task Achievement (Task 1) and Task Response (Task 2)

* Coherence and Cohesion 

* Lexical Resource 

* Grammatical Range and Accuracy 

Task Achievement (Task 1) and Task Response (Task 2) 

To get full marks in this category you need to do what the task asks you to do. Ask yourself the following questions:

* Did you answer the question being asked? 

* Did you answer all parts of the question? 

* In Task 1, did you clearly give details of the key features, trends and differences? 

* In Task 2, did you clearly justify your position and write in a direct fashion? 

Ways to boost your score in this area: 

* Don’t rush into writing! Allow yourself time to read and fully understand the question. Often you will have 2 or 3 points to consider/answer. Underline them! 

* Determine what type of question is being asked and use the right structure. The first paragraph should be the introduction. The last paragraph should be the conclusion. The middle two / three paragraphs should be your body paragraphs. 

* Include ALL of the key points in a graph/chart. Omitting important elements can lose you points. Again, spend time reviewing the chart before you start writing. 

* Remember to state your position/opinion in the introduction.

* Use examples to explain your position in more detail in the two middle supporting paragraphs. 

* Write at least 150 words for Task 1 and 250 words for Task 2. Task 2 contributes 2x as much as Task 1 so you may want to focus on it first. 

* Watch your timing and leave enough time to answer both essays. Allow 40 minutes for Task 2 and 20 minutes for Task 1.

Coherence and Cohesion 

In this category, the examiner is looking to see if you can: logically organize information and ideas. 

Clearly, progress from one thought to another. This should be achieved by using a range of cohesive devices throughout (i.e. connecting sentences with the appropriate phrases like ‘on the one hand’, ‘on the other hand’, ‘firstly, ‘secondly’, etc). 

Present a clear central topic within each paragraph when answering the Task 2 question. 

Ways to boost your score in this area: 

* Use an idea that will be easy and simple to write about. This is not the place to show off your creative thinking. Complex ideas are often too hard to communicate and will lose you points. 

* Present only one or two ideas in each paragraph. 

* Remember to clearly state your position in the introduction and make sure that each following paragraph links back to that. 

* Cohesion is not just using linking words, it is also using demonstratives, repetition, and transitions. This tutorial about cohesion and coherence covers all of these in greater detail. 

* Perfect your punctuation! Often essays become incoherent simply because commas and semicolons are in the wrong place or full stops are missing.

Lexical Response 

In this component, we are essentially looking at the vocabulary/words that you use in your essay. Here you need to: