IELTS Writing band descriptors

This page is our original explainer of the four Traits used to assess IELTS Writing Task 2. The official tables are PDFs on ielts.org. We do not host, quote, or restyle Partner descriptor cells.

Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by IELTS, IDP, the British Council, or Cambridge University Press & Assessment.

The IELTS Partners publish the public Writing Band Descriptors PDF and the key assessment criteria PDF on ielts.org. Read those documents there. This page is not a copy of them.

The four Traits

IELTS Writing Task 2 is assessed on four public categories. The names below are those public exam categories. The sentences are ours.

Task Response is whether the Task 2 essay actually answers the question on the page. A reader should find a view that belongs to that question, and ideas that support it, instead of ignoring half the prompt or sliding into a neighbouring topic.

Coherence and Cohesion is whether the writing is arranged so a reader can follow the argument. Each paragraph should do a job, and the sentences should connect, without becoming a pile of remarks that do not lead anywhere.

Lexical Resource is the words on the page: how precise they are, how much range they show, and whether topic vocabulary sounds like it belongs in the sentence rather than a memorized list dropped in.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy is whether the writer can vary how sentences are built, and how often grammar mistakes get in the way of meaning.

Those four names are the same public categories our grader uses when it returns an Estimated Band after Submit. Practice estimate only. Not an official IELTS score. Estimated Band is a practice figure from this product. It is not an examiner report and not a restyle of the official tables. How we produce that figure is on How Estimated Band works.

Academic Task 1 charts and General Training letters are not supported yet. This page is about Task 2 only.

Official scoring materials belong to the IELTS Partners: the British Council, IDP, and Cambridge University Press & Assessment. Link them; do not republish them.