Requirements for 7 bands Writing

The aim of this lesson is to look more generally at what is required to get a band 7 in the writing test. We'll focus on essay writing rather than task 1, but the criteria and principals are more or less the same. There is some clarification of some of the differences between the marking of task 1 and 2 at the end.

The Marking Criteria

To explain this, we'll begin by looking at the IELTS band descriptors for a band 7. This information is taken from the IELTS public band descriptors
When you are graded, you will be given a score for each of these, and this will then be averaged. So if you are getting a 6.5, that means you must not be meeting the standard required as shown in the table for one or two of them.


For example:
Task achievement = 7
Coherence and Cohesion = 7
Lexical Resource = 7
Grammatical Range and Accuracy = 6
Overall writing band = 6.5


We'll now just have a look at each of them in a bit more detail to highlight some common areas where you may possibly be going wrong.

Task Achievement

Very basically, this is an assessment of whether you have fully answered the question and provided good support for your ideas. To address all parts of the task, you must respond to everything that is asked in the question. To take an example, look at this question:

Some people think that the best way to reduce crime is to give longer prison sentences. Others, however, believe there are better alternative ways of reducing crime .Discuss both views and give your opinion.

1. A. The task is to discuss both the opinions and to give your opinion. So, for example, if you only wrote about one of the opinions or did not give your opinion, you will not have addressed all parts of the question so you can't get an IELTS band 7 for task achievement.

B. Or if you only wrote a small amount on one of the opinions, this may not be seen as fully answering the question either.

C. There is a lesson here that explains the importance of identifying the task to make sure you fully answer all parts of the question.

2. You must also have a clear position throughout. So if your opinion is not clear and you seem to change it during the essay, then this could be a problem for achieving an IELTS band 7.

3. You also need to fully extend and support your ideas. So it is not enough just to put lots of ideas down - fewer ideas are better that are explained properly with reasons and examples.

Coherence and Cohesion

1. Very basically, this is how you organize and present your ideas, and how easy your work is to read. So you will need to know how to organize an essay properly in terms of paragraphing and having ideas that logically and clearly go from one to the next to get an IELTS band 7.

2. Another key point here is that you have to have a clear central topic within each paragraph.
To take a simple example, if you are writing about the advantages and disadvantages of something, then you may want to have one paragraph about each. Each paragraph will then have a clear central topic - either advantages or disadvantages. If you mix them up, this may not be clear.

3. You also need a mix of cohesive devices. These are the things that join and link your ideas, sentences and paragraphs for example, transitions such as 'however', 'firstly', 'moreover', and other general linking words within sentences such as 'and' and 'because'. You will need a variety and mix of these for an IELTS band 7.

Lexical Resource

1. Your lexis is basically your vocabulary,
2. You'll need to show that you know some less common words and be able to use them precisely.
3.  You can only make occasional errors in your word choice, word formation and spelling. This means the majority need to be correct!

4. You need to learn how to use the words correctly. Using lots of new words that you don't know how to use properly could make your writing worse, so be careful! Only use words you know how to use properly.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy

1. As will be clear from the title, this one is assessing your level of grammar. You will need to show you can use a wide range of sentence structures and have a high level of accuracy.

2. You need to have frequent error-free sentences. In other words, the majority of your sentences can't have grammar errors.

Task 1

The last three criteria are more or less the same for task 1. The differences are in the task achievement as obviously you are being given a different task. This is what the public descriptors have for task 1 (academic):

1. Covers the requirements of the task
2. Presents a clear overview of trends, differences or stages
3. Clearly presents and highlights key features/bullet points but could be more fully extended

The first point is obviously stating that you must do what you were asked in the question. The second point means that at some stage in your writing you must clearly give an overview of the main things that are occurring in the graph or diagram.

Finally, to achieve in the last point you must be able to show that you can notice and write about the important things that are happening in the graph, and make comparisons between the data.