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IELTS Writing Task 2: How to Score Band 7 (and the Mistakes That Hold You Back)



IELTS Writing Task 2: How to Score Band 7 (and the Mistakes That Hold You Back)

For most IELTS candidates, Writing is the hardest section to move — and Task 2 is where the band is won or lost. People often plateau at band 6 and can’t see why, because unlike Reading or Listening, you can’t mark your own writing objectively. You need to understand exactly how the examiner scores it.

Here’s how Task 2 actually works, and how to push from band 6 to band 7.

How Task 2 is scored — the 4 criteria

Your essay is marked on four equal parts (each 25% of your Writing Task 2 score):

  1. Task Response — did you fully answer the question, take a clear position, and develop your ideas?
  2. Coherence & Cohesion — is it logically organised, with clear paragraphs and smooth linking?
  3. Lexical Resource — vocabulary range and accuracy.
  4. Grammatical Range & Accuracy — variety of structures, and how few errors.

The key insight: you must do well on ALL FOUR. A brilliant vocabulary won’t save you if you didn’t answer the question. Most band-6 essays are weak on one or two criteria without the writer realising which.

The structure that works for band 7

You have 40 minutes and need at least 250 words. A clean four-paragraph structure handles almost every Task 2 question:

  • Introduction — paraphrase the question, then state your clear position/answer.
  • Body paragraph 1 — your first main point, explained, with a specific example.
  • Body paragraph 2 — your second main point, explained, with an example.
  • Conclusion — restate your position, summarise. No new ideas.

Simple and clear beats complicated and messy. Examiners reward clarity, not cleverness.

The mistakes that cap you at band 6

These are the ones that quietly hold people back:

  • Not fully answering the question. If the prompt has two parts (“discuss both views AND give your opinion”), you must do both. Missing a part caps Task Response.
  • No clear position. Sitting on the fence (“both sides have points…”) without committing lowers your band. Take a stance and defend it.
  • Memorised phrases and templates. Examiners spot pre-learned chunks instantly, and they don’t count as your own language. Worse, they often don’t fit the question.
  • No specific examples. “Many studies show…” is weak. A concrete, specific example (even a realistic invented one) develops your idea properly.
  • Underlength. Below 250 words is penalised. But padding with filler also hurts — write enough real content.
  • Weak paragraphing. One giant block, or random line breaks, hurts Coherence. Clear paragraphs with one main idea each.
  • Repetition and limited grammar. Reusing the same words and only simple sentences caps Lexical Resource and Grammatical Range.

The honest part — why people get stuck

Here’s the real reason band 6 candidates plateau: you can’t reliably grade your own writing. You don’t know which of the four criteria is dragging you down, so you keep practising blind — writing more essays without knowing what to fix.

The fix isn’t writing more; it’s writing with feedback on the exact four criteria. When you can see “your Task Response is band 7 but your Grammatical Range is band 5,” you finally know where to focus. That targeted practice is what moves the band — not volume.

A quick band-7 checklist

Before you finish any Task 2 essay, check:

  • Did I answer every part of the question?
  • Is my position clear from the introduction?
  • Does each body paragraph have one main idea + an example?
  • Did I use a range of vocabulary and sentence structures?
  • Is it over 250 words, in clear paragraphs?

Tick all five consistently, and band 7 is within reach.

Want to know exactly which of the four criteria is holding your band back? AlmiPrep gives you AI-evaluated band scores on every essay — Task Response, Coherence, Lexical Resource, and Grammar — so you practise what actually needs fixing. See a sample evaluation free.