Is your writing holding you back from achieving the IELTS score you need? Relax! We’ve got just the thing for you—a how-to article on acing your IELTS Writing Task 2.
In this blog post, we will share some IELTS Writing Task 2 tips that will help you better your writing skills. Whether you're taking the test to achieve your study, work or migration goals, these tips can make all the difference to your IELTS score.
IELTS Writing Task 2 accounts for a big part of your writing score, as it’s worth twice as much in marking as Task 1. To do well, you’ll need to write a clear, well-organised and relevant essay on a given topic. With proper preparation and practice, you can easily get the score you need.
Read on to discover some handy tips to get your Writing score up, such as understanding the question, planning your essay, organising your ideas and using a wide range of vocabulary and grammatical structures. You’ll also find practical examples and exercises to help you apply these tips. By the time you finish reading, you'll have gathered enough information and ideas to tackle IELTS Writing Task 2 with confidence.
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Understanding IELTS Writing Task 2 Requirements
To produce an IELTS Writing Task 2 that stands out, it's important that you first understand what’s involved in acing the task (i.e. the requirements of the task). In this section you can find out more about the task format, scoring criteria and some common mistakes you should avoid.
Task Format
IELTS Writing Task 2 requires you to write an essay in response to a point of view, argument or problem. You must write at least 250 words, spending no more than 40 minutes on the entire task. Your essay should be well-structured and written in a formal or semi-formal style, presenting a clear argument supported by relevant examples. If what you write is not clearly related to the topic, you will be penalised. For instance, if the topic is a particular aspect (e.g. use of modern technology in the classroom) of a wider theme (technology, in this case), see that your answer focuses only on this aspect. Anything you write on the wider theme will be considered irrelevant.
Scoring Criteria
Your essay will be scored depending on how well you fulfil these four key criteria:
- Task Response: Address all parts of the task and present a clear, well-developed position throughout the essay, supported by evidence and examples from your own experience.
- Coherence and Cohesion: Organise your ideas and information logically, achieving clear progression and using a range of cohesive devices (e.g. linking phrases, pronouns, conjunctions).
- Lexical Resource: Use a wide range of vocabulary accurately and appropriately.
- Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Use a wide variety of grammar structures accurately and appropriately.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Test takers who don’t get the score they deserve in their IELTS Writing Task 2 often make costly mistakes. Here are some common mistakes to watch out for:
- Not answering all parts of the question: Identify how many parts your task has at the very beginning and see to it that you address all of them.
- Poor organisation: Use paragraphs effectively to structure your essay.
- Repetitive language: Avoid using the same words and phrases over and over; instead, use synonyms (e.g. significant problem ↔ worrying issue), pronouns (e.g. 'they' instead of 'children'), and different word forms (e.g. advertisement, advertising, advertise).
- Grammatical errors: Pay attention to subject-verb agreement, tenses, conditionals and punctuation.
Effective Planning and Structuring Techniques
One of the most important IELTS Writing Task 2 tips is planning and structuring your essay effectively. Apart from helping you stay on topic and work out a logical structure, planning also enables you to write faster. And that’s good news for anyone wanting to boost their Writing score.
In this section you will find techniques for brainstorming, organising ideas and creating a coherent essay structure.
Brainstorming Ideas
Before you start writing, it's important to brainstorm ideas and write them down. This helps you remember relevant points and examples to support your arguments. Here are some steps you could follow to come up with relevant ideas for your essay:
- Understand the question: Carefully read the question more than once to ensure you understand what you’re being asked to write about. Highlight key words and identify all the different parts of the question.
- Generate ideas: Spend a few minutes thinking about different aspects of the topic. Write down any ideas that come to mind, even if they seem unrelated at first.
- Group related ideas: Organise your ideas into categories. This will help you see which points can be grouped together in your essay.
- Select the best ideas: Choose the strongest and most relevant ideas to include in your essay. Make sure the ideas you choose directly address the question.
Organising Your Essay
Once you’ve decided which ideas to keep, the next step is to put them in a logical order. A well-organised essay is easier to read and understand. Here’s how you can organise your essay:
- Create an outline: Draft an outline that includes an introduction, body paragraphs and a conclusion. This will function as a framework for your writing.
- Introduction: Start with a general statement that introduces the topic and your main point. Clearly state your position if the question asks for it.
- Body paragraphs: Each body paragraph should focus on a single main idea. Start with a topic sentence, and provide evidence or examples to support your ideas. Create a logical flow that helps the reader move smoothly from one sentence to another, one paragraph to the next.
- Conclusion: Summarise your main points and restate your opinion in the conclusion. Avoid introducing new information here.
Creating Coherence and Cohesion
In writing, coherence and cohesion work together to produce texts that are easy to follow. For your IELTS Writing Task 2 to be rated high, it will need to achieve both. While logical sequencing of ideas and paragraphing can help you achieve coherence, you would still need to take care of cohesion.
Here are some handy tips to get you started:
- Use cohesive devices: Cohesive devices help to connect ideas in a text, making it easier to follow. They include discourse markers (e.g. First of all, as a result), conjunctions (e.g. although, even if) and pronouns (e.g. it, they).
- Maintain consistent point of view and use of tenses: Ensure that both your point of view and use of verb tenses is consistent throughout your essay to avoid confusion.
- Refer back to your opinion: Regularly refer back to your opinion about the given topic to ensure that your arguments remain focused and relevant.
- Review and change: On completing the essay, review your work and make changes if needed. Check for any gaps in logic or unclear transitions.
Writing Task 2 Tips for Higher Scores
To achieve a higher band score in IELTS Writing Task 2, providing evidence of advanced writing techniques is a must. In this section you can find out more about complex sentence structures, advanced vocabulary and the effective use of examples to improve your writing.
Using Complex Sentence Structures
The ability to use a range of grammar structures (simple, compound and complex sentences) accurately and appropriately can get you a higher score in IELTS Writing Task 2. Compared to simple and compound sentences, complex ones are harder to get right. A complex sentence combines an independent clause with one or more dependent clauses. Here are some examples:
Example: Although many people believe that zoos are beneficial for education, others argue that they are inhumane and should be banned.
Example: If the government implements strict policies, pollution levels will decrease significantly.
Using Advanced Vocabulary
Let’s say you want to get a band 8 on vocabulary in your IELTS Writing Task 2. To make it happen, you would need to display skilful use of uncommon lexical items (i.e. vocabulary). Remember, this doesn’t mean cramping your essay with “difficult” or “high-sounding” words. Instead, use idiomatic language (e.g. phrases, phrasal verbs) and uncommon terms that are related to the topic. A sound understanding of collocations is also expected at this level, so you should know which words go together and which words are suitable to use for specific topics. Here are some examples:
Examples of phrases: school of thought, put simply, on balance, to go green.
Examples of phrasal verbs: use up, carry out, cut down on, look into.
Whatever you do, don’t forget the golden rule: if you’re unsure how to use an uncommon term, find a simpler equivalent you can use in its place. Too many lexical errors can bring down your score, so practise using advanced vocabulary in context to ensure accuracy and appropriateness.
Including Effective Examples
It is a good idea to use examples to support your ideas and arguments so that your essay is more compelling. For an example to be effective, it should be relevant, specific and clearly highlight the point you are trying to make. You’re not expected to include statistics in your IELTS essay, so do not “invent” figures (e.g. percentage, number) and add them to examples.
Example: Recent studies conducted in the UK, for instance, have found that students who engage in regular physical activity perform better academically.
Example: To illustrate, countries that have implemented strict gun control laws, such as Japan, have significantly lower rates of gun-related violence.
Using specific examples not only strengthens your arguments but also demonstrates your ability to apply knowledge effectively.
If you’d like to explore more useful tips and some practice questions for IELTS Writing Task 2, check out this informative video.