IELTS Writing Band Descriptors Explained, Criterion by Criterion

Most candidates prepare for IELTS Writing by collecting vocabulary and reading sample essays. Examiners, meanwhile, mark against four published criteria, each worth exactly a quarter of your score. The gap between those two facts explains most disappointing Writing results. If you understand what each criterion rewards — and, just as importantly, what caps a script at a given band — you can direct your practice at the marks themselves. This guide walks through all four criteria in plain language, based on the public band descriptors.

How the marking works

Each of your two tasks receives a whole-number band (not half bands) for each of four criteria: Task Achievement (called Task Response in Task 2), Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource, and Grammatical Range and Accuracy. The four are averaged for each task, and Task 2 counts twice as much as Task 1 toward your final Writing band. Two consequences follow immediately: a brilliant essay cannot fully rescue a careless Task 1, and a weakness in one criterion — say, punctuation errors dragging down grammar — pulls a full quarter of your mark regardless of how impressive the rest is. For the arithmetic across your whole test, see how the IELTS band score is calculated.

Criterion 1: Task Achievement / Task Response

This criterion asks one question: did you do the task you were set? For Task 2, that means addressing all parts of the question, maintaining a clear position, and developing your ideas with support. For Task 1, it means covering the key features of the data or, in General Training, all the bullet points of the letter, with an accurate overview.

• At Band 5, the response addresses the task only partially — one half of a two-part question ignored, a position that drifts, or ideas listed without development.
• At Band 6, all parts are addressed but unevenly; conclusions may be unclear or repetitive; some ideas are underdeveloped.
• At Band 7, the whole task is addressed, the position is clear throughout, and main ideas are extended and supported — though the descriptors allow for a tendency to overgeneralise.
• At Band 8–9, ideas are well developed, relevant and fully extended, with nothing important missing.

What caps you here: answering the topic instead of the question. A fluent essay about technology in general, responding to a question about technology in education, cannot score well on this criterion no matter how good the English is. Spend the first three minutes analysing the question — every content word — and check each body paragraph against it. Practise this analysis across many prompts with our Task 2 topic bank.

Criterion 2: Coherence and Cohesion

This criterion covers two related things: whether your ideas are organised logically (coherence) and whether the connections between them are signalled clearly (cohesion) through linking words, referencing and paragraphing.

• At Band 5, organisation exists but linking is repetitive, inaccurate or mechanical, and paragraphing may be inadequate.
• At Band 6, arrangement is coherent overall, but cohesive devices are sometimes faulty or overused — the classic "Firstly… Moreover… In addition… Furthermore…" essay lives here.
• At Band 7, information is logically organised with clear progression throughout, and each paragraph has a clear central topic.
• At Band 8–9, cohesion attracts no attention at all — the essay simply flows, with paragraphing used skilfully.

What caps you here: the widespread belief that more linkers mean more marks. Above Band 6, the descriptors reward linking that is natural and precise, not abundant. One clear topic sentence per paragraph, consistent pronoun referencing ("this approach," "such policies"), and a logical order of ideas do more for this criterion than any list of connectors. A one-idea-per-paragraph plan, made before you write, is the single highest-yield habit — see our Band 7 essay structure guide.

Criterion 3: Lexical Resource

This criterion measures the range, precision and appropriacy of your vocabulary — not its rarity.

• At Band 5, vocabulary is limited and repetitive, with noticeable errors in word choice and word formation.
• At Band 6, the range is adequate for the task; the writer attempts less common vocabulary but with some inaccuracy.
• At Band 7, the descriptors ask for flexibility and precision, some less common items used with style and collocation awareness, and only occasional errors.
• At Band 8–9, vocabulary is fluent, natural and precise, with rare slips only.

What caps you here: memorised "Band 9 phrases" deployed regardless of fit. Examiners see "a hotly debated topic in contemporary society" daily, and a misused impressive word ("the government should ameliorate buses") is an error, not an upgrade. The reliable route to 7+ is collocation: learning which words genuinely go together in your common topic areas — "raise awareness," "meet demand," "a viable alternative." Build topic-organised collocation banks the way we model in our guides to environment vocabulary and technology vocabulary.

Criterion 4: Grammatical Range and Accuracy

Two words, two requirements: you need variety of structures and you need them correct.

• At Band 5, the range is limited, complex sentences are attempted but faulty, and errors are frequent enough to cause some difficulty for the reader.
• At Band 6, there is a mix of simple and complex forms, but errors persist in complex structures, even if they rarely block communication.
• At Band 7, the decisive line: a variety of complex structures, with frequent error-free sentences and good control of grammar and punctuation.
• At Band 8–9, the wide range is used accurately and flexibly; errors are rare and hard to find.

What caps you here: complexity you cannot control. A candidate who writes eight accurate sentences mixing relative clauses, conditionals and passives will outscore one who attempts tangled four-clause constructions and breaks half of them. Find your error fingerprint — articles, subject–verb agreement, comma splices are the usual suspects, catalogued in our guide to common IELTS grammar mistakes — and eliminate your top three. Accuracy you already almost have is the cheapest band improvement available.

Using the descriptors to study

Turn the criteria into a marking habit. After every practice essay, score yourself criterion by criterion, asking four questions: Did I answer every part of the exact question? Does each paragraph have one clear, ordered idea? Is my vocabulary precise and collocated, or decorated and risky? What fraction of my sentences are error-free? Self-marking is imperfect — writers forgive their own errors — so calibrate it against objective feedback: our IELTS writing checker scores your essays against these same four criteria and shows you which one is holding your band down. Practise on fresh prompts from the Writing question bank, fix the weakest criterion, and re-test. That loop — write, diagnose by criterion, correct, repeat — is what moving a Writing band actually looks like.