Writing and speaking · · 4 min read
IELTS Writing Task 2: What Examiners Actually Reward
The four public band descriptors turned into practical writing decisions: task response, paragraphing, vocabulary risk and grammar range in Task 2.
By Verbola Editorial Team · Last reviewed
Task 2 is the single most valuable item on the IELTS Writing paper: it counts for twice as much as Task 1, and for most candidates it is the difference between the Writing band they have and the one they need. It is also scored against four public criteria that most test takers have never actually read.
This guide translates those criteria into the decisions you make while writing. The full scoring system, including how Writing fits into your overall band, is covered in our band scores guide.
The four criteria, in plain terms
Examiners score Task 2 on four equally weighted criteria:
| Criterion | The question the examiner is really asking |
|---|---|
| Task Response | Did you answer this exact question, fully, with developed ideas? |
| Coherence and Cohesion | Can I follow the argument without rereading anything? |
| Lexical Resource | Is the vocabulary precise, varied and natural? |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | Are there varied structures, and how many are error-free? |
Because each is worth 25 percent, an essay with brilliant grammar and a half-answered question does no better than a plainly written essay that answers everything. That trade is the source of most Task 2 disappointment.
Task Response: the criterion that caps everything
The most common band 6 story is not weak English; it is a partially answered question. IELTS prompts have moving parts: "discuss both views and give your own opinion" contains three tasks, "to what extent do you agree" demands a clear position held consistently from introduction to conclusion.
Two habits protect this criterion. First, spend five minutes planning: identify every part of the prompt and assign each a paragraph before writing a word. Second, make your position visible early and never contradict it. An essay that agrees in the introduction, wanders in the middle and hedges in the conclusion reads as no position at all.
Memorized template essays fail here too. Examiners are trained to recognize rehearsed content, and Task Response rewards ideas developed for this specific question. Learn structures, not sentences.
Coherence and Cohesion: paragraphs do the heavy lifting
This criterion is mostly won before you write, in the plan. One central idea per body paragraph, stated in the first sentence, then developed with explanation and one concrete example. That shape alone puts you ahead of most essays.
The classic mistake is mechanical linking: starting every sentence with "Furthermore", "Moreover", "In addition". Band 7 cohesion is quieter; ideas connect because they are in a logical order, with reference words ("this approach", "such policies") doing more work than connectors. If removing a linker changes nothing, it was noise.
Lexical Resource: precision beats decoration
The fastest way to lose lexical marks is to add memorized "band 9 vocabulary" that does not quite fit. Examiners reward precise, natural word choice and correct collocation, and they penalize words used imprecisely, however rare they are. "This problem is growing" beats "this conundrum is burgeoning" if the second one is even slightly off.
Build topic vocabulary the slow way: from reading about common Task 2 themes (education, environment, technology, health, cities), collected and reviewed with spaced repetition. Ten word families you can deploy accurately are worth more than fifty you half-know.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy: the error-free sentence count
The descriptor language is revealing: higher bands require that many sentences be completely error-free, alongside a mix of simple and complex structures. Range without accuracy fails; a paragraph of ambitious, broken sentences scores lower than clean sentences with occasional complexity.
The practical move is to know your two or three recurring errors (articles, subject-verb agreement, comma splices are the usual suspects) and hunt exactly those in your final read-through. A three-minute targeted check at the end converts more marks than three minutes of extra writing.
Practice the loop, not the essay count
Writing forty essays without feedback practices your current band. The loop that moves the band: write one timed essay, get criterion-level feedback, rewrite the weakest paragraph, then write the next essay watching for the flagged pattern. Feedback can come from a teacher or from Verbola's writing evaluation, which scores against the same four criteria with sentence-level corrections; either way, treat any AI band score as a practice estimate, never an official result.
Two timed Task 2 essays a week with genuine review, slotted into a structured study plan, is enough for most candidates to feel the criteria shift in their favor within a month. The examiners have told us exactly what they reward; the preparation that works is simply taking them at their word.