How IELTS Writing Is Marked: The Four Criteria and How They Combine

Listening and Reading are marked against an answer key. Writing is not.

Certificated IELTS examiners assess your performance on each Writing task source: ielts.org.

If you know what the examiner is looking for, you can read your own writing the same way. This guide is the hub for our series on the four Writing criteria.

Two tasks, and one counts twice

The Writing test takes 60 minutes and has two tasks. In Task 1 you write at least 150 words in about 20 minutes. On Academic, you describe visual information such as a graph, table, chart or diagram source: ielts.org.

On General Training, Task 1 is a letter source: ielts.org.

Our Writing Task 1 guide covers both versions of the task.

In Task 2 you are given a point of view, argument or problem to discuss. You write at least 250 words in about 40 minutes. Task 2 contributes twice as much as Task 1 to your Writing score source: ielts.org.

That is why the suggested time for Task 2 is 40 of the 60 minutes. If you split your time evenly, you give too much of it to the task that counts less.

The four criteria

Each task is marked on four criteria. The criteria are weighted equally, and the score for the task is their average source: ielts.org.

The first criterion has a different name for each task.

source: ielts.org

A reliable essay structure helps coherence and cohesion directly. We show one in How to Structure IELTS Writing Task 2 for a Band 7+.

Each criterion has its own guide in this series:

• task response, and what separates band 6 from band 7
• coherence and cohesion, the criterion most candidates misread
• lexical resource, and why precise words beat rare ones
• grammatical range and accuracy, and why correct sentences matter more than difficult ones

To plan your practice, use our Writing improvement plan. It starts from the criterion that holds your band down.

How the task scores combine

IELTS does not publish the exact calculation for combining the two task scores, or how the result is rounded.

A simple way to picture the double weight of Task 2 is to count Task 2 twice and divide by three. With Task 1 at band 6 and Task 2 at band 7, that gives (6 + 7 + 7) ÷ 3, which is about 6.67. Swap the two results and you get about 6.33.

So the same two performances give a higher score when the stronger one is Task 2. This is another reason to give Task 2 its full 40 minutes.

Your Writing band is then averaged with your other three section bands. The overall band score is the average of the four, rounded to the nearest half band. An average ending in .25 rounds up to the next half band, and one ending in .75 rounds up to the next whole band source: ielts.org.

The band score calculator shows how your Writing band moves your overall score. IELTS band scores explained covers the scale itself.

Writing and Speaking

Speaking is also marked on four criteria: fluency and coherence, lexical resource, grammatical range and accuracy, and pronunciation source: ielts.org.

Two of these share a name with the Writing criteria. The definitions are not the same, because Speaking is judged as speech. How IELTS Speaking Is Marked covers the spoken versions.

Which criteria mark Writing Task 1, Writing Task 2 and Speaking

Criterion	Writing		Speaking
	Task 1	Task 2
Task Achievement	assessed	not assessed	not assessed
Task Response	not assessed	assessed	not assessed
Coherence and Cohesion	assessed	assessed	not assessed
Fluency and Coherence	not assessed	not assessed	assessed
Lexical Resource	assessed	assessed	assessed
Grammatical Range and Accuracy	assessed	assessed	assessed
Pronunciation	not assessed	not assessed	assessed

Each task is marked on four criteria of equal weight. Lexical Resource and Grammatical Range and Accuracy mark all three.

Sources: ielts.org, Writing band descriptors; Speaking band descriptors; IELTS scoring in detail

Read the descriptors themselves

The public band descriptors have one table for each Writing task, with every criterion at every band source: ielts.org.

So you do not have to guess what band 7 needs.

A script is your written answer. So to reach a band on a criterion, your writing has to show all the positive features that band describes, not only some of them.

The tables are dense, but one exercise is worth the effort. Read the row for your target band next to the row below it, and note what changes.

For example, at band 6 cohesion "may be faulty or mechanical". At band 7, cohesive devices are "used flexibly but with some inaccuracies or some over/under use" source: ielts.org.

Cohesive devices are the words that join ideas. You can practise that one change. Because an examiner marks Writing, there is no conversion table and no raw score to count. Practise with the descriptor tables open, and have your writing checked against them.

The four criteria and what each assesses come from the Writing key assessment criteria, and the band-level wording from the public Writing band descriptors, both on ielts.org. The task lengths, the timings and the extra weight of Task 2 come from the Academic and General Training Writing format pages. The equal weighting of the criteria, the Speaking criteria and the rounding rule come from IELTS scoring in detail. Descriptors updated May 2023. Last checked on 27 September 2026.