Writing is the module where the marking criteria are public and specific, so the most reliable gains come from writing to the criteria rather than writing more. Two tasks, sixty minutes, and Task 2 carries twice the weight of Task 1. Everything below is organised around that arithmetic.
You will stop losing marks to a missing overview sentence, to the half of the question you never answered, and to the vocabulary somebody told you would impress.
The format at a glance
Time
60 minutes for both tasks
Task 1
At least 150 words, about 20 minutes
Task 2
At least 250 words, about 40 minutes
Weighting
Task 2 counts twice as much as Task 1
Task 1 criteria
Task Achievement, Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Task 2 criteria
Task Response, Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The traps, worked through
Writing scores are capped by omissions far more often than by errors, and the same three omissions come round again and again.
The Task 1 overview that is not there
Academic Task 1 asks you to select and report the main features. Without a sentence stating the overall pattern, Task Achievement is capped however accurate the detail is.
On screen
A line graph showing visitor numbers at three library branches across a decade.
Most candidates write
“In the first year the central branch had 40,000 visits. The next year it had 42,000. The east branch had 18,000 …” — accurate, sequential, and with no statement of the overall picture anywhere.
Earns the mark
“Overall, visits fell at all three branches over the period, with the steepest decline at the central branch, which nonetheless remained the busiest throughout.”
Why: The overview is the sentence that proves you read the graph rather than transcribed it, and it is the sentence the descriptor is looking for.
A two-part prompt carries two separate obligations, and the one that goes missing is almost always the judgement rather than the description.
On screen
“Some people believe university should be free for all students. Others think students should pay. Discuss both views and give your own opinion.”
Most candidates write
Two balanced body paragraphs — one for free tuition, one for fees — closing with “both sides have strong arguments”.
Earns the mark
The same two body paragraphs, plus a position held from the introduction to the conclusion: “While the case for fees is a fiscal one, I would argue the wider social return makes free provision the better policy.”
Why: “Discuss both views and give your own opinion” is three obligations, and a conclusion that declines to choose leaves one of them unmet.
Lexical Resource rewards precision and natural collocation, not rarity. A thesaurus substitution nobody would say costs more than the plain word it replaced.
On screen
A Task 2 sentence about the effects of remote working.
Most candidates write
“Remote working engenders a plethora of ameliorations in the quotidian existence of labourers.”
Earns the mark
“Remote working removes the commute, which for many employees is the single biggest improvement to the working day.”
Why: The second sentence is precise, collocates naturally and is easy to follow, while the first is a string of words used outside their normal company — which lowers Lexical Resource rather than raising it.
The minimums are 150 and 250 words. Nothing above them is rewarded in itself, and the surplus sentences are where the errors and the lost minutes live.
On screen
Task 2, forty minutes, a 420-word essay.
Most candidates write
Four body paragraphs, two of them making the same point in different words, a rushed conclusion, and no time left to check anything.
Earns the mark
An introduction of about 45 words, two developed body paragraphs of about 100 each, a conclusion of about 35 — roughly 280 words — with three minutes spare for tenses, articles and plurals.
Why: The descriptors reward control rather than volume, and those three minutes of checking recover more marks than a fourth paragraph ever adds.
Sixty minutes, two tasks, and Task 2 worth twice Task 1. Split the hour before you sit down, not while you are writing.
0–5 min · Task 2
Start with the task worth double, and plan it. Underline every obligation in the prompt, fix your position in one sentence, then note two body-paragraph ideas with a concrete example each. Those five minutes are the difference between an essay and a drift.
5–35 min · Task 2
About 280 words in thirty minutes is roughly nine words a minute — slow enough to write accurately. Introduction 45, two bodies of 100, conclusion 35.
35–38 min · Task 2
Check, do not extend. Four separate passes, one issue each: verb tenses, articles before singular countable nouns, plural endings, and subject-verb agreement in every sentence that opens with a long noun phrase.
38–56 min · Task 1
Two minutes reading the visual and grouping the data, one paraphrased opening sentence, one overview sentence, then two body paragraphs of selected figures. Aim for 170 to 190 words.
56–60 min
Word counts on both tasks first — under-length is penalised and it is the only fault you can still repair in four minutes. Then reread the Task 1 overview and confirm it names a pattern rather than a number.
Spend the first minutes planning
Do Task 2 first if you tend to run out of time, because it carries twice the marks. Then give Task 1 the remaining twenty minutes.
Plan Task 2 for about five minutes: your position, two body paragraph ideas, and one concrete example each. Unplanned essays drift and lose Task Response marks.
Underline every part of the question. A two-part prompt such as 'discuss both views and give your own opinion' has three obligations, and missing one caps Task Response.
Decide your position before you write, not while writing. Changing sides halfway is the single clearest coherence failure.
Leave three minutes at the end to check tenses, articles, plurals and subject-verb agreement. Those four checks recover more marks than any extra sentence.
Read around the recurring Task 2 themes before test day — education, technology, work, environment, health, crime, globalisation, urbanisation. Strong English cannot rescue an essay with nothing to say.
Task 1 Academic: describe, do not explain
You are reporting what the visual shows. Causes, opinions and recommendations are not asked for and do not earn marks.
Write an overview paragraph naming the main trend or the biggest contrast. Without an overview, Task Achievement is capped regardless of how detailed the rest is.
Paraphrase the prompt in your first sentence rather than copying it. Copied prompt wording is excluded from your word count.
Group the data into two body paragraphs by pattern, for example rising categories versus falling ones, rather than listing every figure in order.
Select the figures that support the pattern: the highest, the lowest, the crossover point, the biggest change. Quoting every number wastes words and blurs the message.
Vary the language of change: rose sharply, climbed steadily, levelled off, fluctuated, plummeted, more than doubled, remained flat.
For a process diagram, use the passive voice and sequencing language: the pulp is then transferred, after which it is dried.
For a map, use directions and change verbs: a car park was built to the north, the woodland was replaced by housing.
Two sentence patterns that carry a whole Task 1
Almost every sentence describing change is one of two shapes. Learn both, alternate them, and the paragraph varies itself without you inventing anything.
Verb plus adverb: 'Between 2001 and 2004, membership rose sharply.' The movement is the verb, the size is the adverb.
There was a, plus adjective plus noun: 'Between 2001 and 2004, there was a sharp rise in membership.' The same fact, the opposite word class.
Build your own pairs so both forms are ready: rose / a rise, fell / a fall, fluctuated / a fluctuation, levelled off / a levelling off, stabilised / a period of stability.
Size vocabulary comes in three bands: slight, minimal and gradual for small movements; moderate and modest for middling ones; sharp, dramatic, significant, considerable and substantial for large ones.
Fold the figures in rather than listing them. Use brackets, 'which is', 'which accounts for', 'which makes up' or 'which constitutes': 'Rail travel, which accounts for 42%, is twice as popular as the bus.'
Group the data before you write. Two paragraphs organised by pattern always read better than one paragraph per chart.
Task 1 General Training: get the register right
Fix the tone before you write: formal for an organisation or a stranger, semi-formal for a neighbour or colleague, informal for a close friend. Then hold it consistently.
Give each of the three bullet points its own paragraph so the examiner can see all three are covered.
Match the opening and closing: 'Dear Sir or Madam' pairs with 'Yours faithfully', 'Dear Mr Patel' with 'Yours sincerely', a first name with 'Best wishes'.
Invent whatever details you need. Nothing is fact-checked; you are marked on coverage and language.
State your purpose in the first line. A formal letter that takes three sentences to reach the point loses clarity marks.
Task 2: structure that carries the marks
Use four or five paragraphs: introduction, two developed body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Two strong body paragraphs beat three thin ones.
Introduce with a paraphrase of the topic and a clear thesis stating your position or outlining the essay.
Give each body paragraph one controlling idea, then explain the mechanism, then illustrate it. Explanation is what separates band 6 from band 7.
Use specific, plausible examples. A named, concrete illustration is stronger than 'studies have shown', and you should not invent statistics or fake sources.
Conclude by restating your position and answering the question directly. Never introduce a new argument in the conclusion.
Address the whole question. In an advantages-and-disadvantages essay that also asks whether the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, the judgement is a separate obligation.
Keep the introduction short, roughly 40 to 50 words. The body is what earns the marks, and a long introduction eats time you cannot get back.
Recognise the five question families and answer the one you were given: opinion (agree or disagree, positive or negative development, do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages), discussion of two views, advantages and disadvantages, problem and solution, and direct or two-part questions.
For an opinion essay, decide between a one-sided answer (two or three reasons for your view) and a balanced one (two reasons for your view, then the opposing view with your rebuttal). Both reach the top bands; drifting between them does not.
Do not use contractions. Write 'cannot' and 'it is', not 'can’t' and 'it’s'.
Avoid memorised templates and set opening formulas. They can lift a weak script to around band 5, but examiners recognise them and they block the higher bands.
Avoid clichés and proverbs. 'Every coin has two sides' reads as memorised; 'there are two defensible positions here' does not.
Write to the four criteria
Coherence and Cohesion is about logical progression and paragraphing, not about how many linking words you insert. Mechanical or overused connectors are explicitly penalised.
Lexical Resource rewards precise, natural collocation. Thesaurus substitutions that no native speaker would use lower the score rather than raise it.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy rewards a mix of simple and complex structures with a high proportion of error-free sentences. Long sentences that collapse are worse than short accurate ones.
Referencing counts as cohesion: 'this trend', 'such measures', 'these figures' link paragraphs without a single connector.
Aim for roughly 170 to 200 words in Task 1 and 270 to 310 in Task 2. Under-length is penalised; padding to 400 words costs accuracy and time.
The final check
Check subject-verb agreement in every sentence that starts with a long noun phrase.
Check articles in front of every singular countable noun.
Check the tense system, particularly past simple for completed data and present simple for general truths.
Check that plural nouns are plural and that uncountable nouns such as information, research and advice are singular.
Check paragraph breaks are visible. A wall of text loses coherence marks even when the ideas are ordered.
Advice to ignore
Five pieces of advice that circulate widely and cap the very bands they promise to raise.
“Learn a template introduction and a set of body-paragraph openers.”
Memorised language is not credited, so the template sentences do nothing for you and the words you actually wrote have to carry the whole essay. Learn the shape of an argument, not the sentences.
“Use as many linking words as possible: Firstly, Moreover, Furthermore.”
Coherence is marked on whether the ideas progress, not on how many connectors are visible, and mechanical or overused linking is named in the descriptors as a weakness. A topic sentence and a phrase like “this trend” do the same job without the flag.
“Write 400 words to show off your range.”
Length above the minimum earns nothing by itself, and the extra 150 words carry extra errors while eating the checking time that would have caught them.
“Explain why the data behaves that way in Academic Task 1.”
Task 1 asks what the visual shows. Causes are unasked-for content, and the words spent on them are words not spent on the comparisons that are actually marked.
“Never write “I” — it is not academic.”
Where the prompt asks for your opinion, “I would argue” is exactly the right register. Hiding behind “it can be said that” is how essays end up with no position at all.
Common mistakes and how to fix them
Writing Task 1 without an overview paragraph.
Fix: Add one sentence, clearly signalled, naming the dominant trend or contrast.
Copying the prompt into the introduction.
Fix: Paraphrase it. Copied wording does not count towards the minimum length.
Speculating about why the data behaves as it does in Task 1 Academic.
Fix: Report only what the visual shows. Explanations belong in Task 2.
Opening every sentence with Firstly, Secondly, Moreover, In conclusion.
Fix: Use referencing and topic sentences instead. Overused connectors are penalised under Coherence and Cohesion.
Running under 150 or 250 words.
Fix: Learn what your own handwriting or typing produces at those lengths and check the on-screen counter before you finish.
Spending 30 minutes on Task 1 and rushing Task 2.
Fix: Task 2 is worth double. Protect its 40 minutes even if Task 1 ends up shorter than you would like.
Answering only half of a two-part question.
Fix: Underline every obligation in the prompt and tick each one off before you submit.
Question type by question type
The single mistake that costs most marks on each task. Each guide then covers what the task looks like on screen, how it is marked, four strategies and the two traps specific to it.
Is there a penalty for writing under the word limit?
Yes. Responses below 150 words for Task 1 or 250 for Task 2 are penalised under Task Achievement or Task Response.
Can I use bullet points or note form?
No. Both tasks must be written in full continuous prose. Notes and bullets are penalised.
Does a longer essay score higher?
No. Length above the minimum is not rewarded in itself, and long essays usually contain more errors. Quality and control matter more.
Should I use I in Task 2?
Yes, where the question asks for your opinion. 'In my view' and 'I would argue' are appropriate in a semi-formal academic register.
How is the overall Writing band calculated?
The two tasks are marked on the same four criteria, and Task 2 contributes twice as much as Task 1 to the Writing band.
Put these tips under exam conditions with a full timed section.
Write one Task 2 to the clock above, then reopen it and mark only two things: whether every obligation in the prompt was answered, and whether your position is identical in the introduction and the conclusion.
