IELTS Writing is a 60-minute module made up of two tasks, and it's often the section candidates find hardest to judge for themselves — unlike Listening or Reading, there's no answer key to check yourself against. This guide brings together the format, the scoring system, and how to allocate your time, so you know exactly what you're being assessed on before you start practising.
How Task 1 differs between Academic and General Training
Both versions of IELTS share the same Writing format — two tasks in 60 minutes — but Task 1 itself is quite different depending on which version you're sitting. In Academic Task 1, you describe visual information: a bar chart, line graph, table, pie chart, process diagram, or map, summarising the key trends or features in your own words. In General Training Task 1, you write a letter instead — formal, semi-formal, or informal depending on who you're addressing — covering three specific points given in the prompt. Task 2 is the same essay-writing task in both versions, though Academic prompts lean slightly more toward abstract or academic topics such as technology, education, and the environment, while General Training topics tend to be more general and everyday.
The four scoring criteria
Every Writing task is marked against four criteria, each worth an equal share of your score:
Task Achievement / Task Response
This measures whether you've actually done what the task asked — covered every bullet point in a letter, reported the key features of a chart rather than every single data point, or taken a clear position and developed it fully in an essay. A beautifully written response that misses part of the task is capped well below what the writing quality alone would suggest.
Coherence and Cohesion
This looks at how well your ideas are organised and connected — clear paragraphing, a logical progression from one point to the next, and appropriate use of linking words. A response with excellent vocabulary but no clear structure will score lower here than one that's simpler but easy to follow.
Lexical Resource
This assesses your vocabulary range and how naturally and accurately you use it. Examiners are looking for appropriate word choice and some less common vocabulary used correctly — not the longest or most impressive-sounding words you can fit in, which often backfires if used imprecisely.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
This covers the variety of sentence structures you use — a mix of simple and complex sentences — along with how accurate your grammar and punctuation are. Consistently correct simple sentences score better than ambitious complex ones riddled with errors.
How your overall band score is calculated
Your Writing band score is the average of your four criteria scores, rounded to the nearest 0.5. For example, scores of 7, 6.5, 6, and 6.5 across the four criteria average to 6.5, giving an overall Writing band of 6.5. Because all four criteria carry equal weight, a single weak criterion — often Task Achievement, when candidates run out of time or misread the prompt — can pull your overall band down even if the other three are strong. This is why examiners and teachers consistently recommend treating all four criteria as equally important during practice, rather than focusing only on vocabulary or grammar.
Time allocation for the 60 minutes
You get one combined 60-minute block for both tasks, with no separate timer for each. The standard recommendation is about 20 minutes for Task 1 and 40 minutes for Task 2, reflecting the fact that Task 2 counts for twice as much of your overall Writing score. Within that, it helps to build in a couple of minutes of planning before you start writing either task — a brief outline for Task 2, or a quick note of the key trends for Task 1 — since responses that start writing immediately without a plan are more likely to lose structure partway through.
Preparation tips
A few habits make the biggest difference in practice: write under real time pressure regularly, not just untimed at your own pace, since timing is where many strong writers lose marks on test day. Read your own response back afterward as if it were someone else's, checking specifically whether every part of the task was addressed. And resist the urge to reach for unfamiliar vocabulary or grammar structures you're not confident using correctly — a clearly expressed, accurate sentence in familiar language consistently scores better than an ambitious one with errors.
Where to go next
If you want a structured weekly routine for practising both tasks, see our guide to building an IELTS Writing study plan. If Task 2 specifically is holding your score back, we have a detailed breakdown of how to score Band 8 in Task 2. And when you're ready to practise under real conditions, our free Writing practice tests include genuine Task 1 and Task 2 prompts for both Academic and General Training, with word-count targets and explanation notes for every question.