IELTS Tips: Writing High-Scoring Essays – Part 1
Today we’ll look at the first 5 steps on how to improve your essay writing skills for the IELTS test.
This article was first published on IELTS.IDP.com
Whether you take the General Training or Academic IELTS test, the second writing task is writing an essay in response to a problem or argument.
Here are 5 out of 10 easy steps, with lots of tips, to guide you on how to write high-scoring essays. We’ll look at the other 5 steps next week!
How is the IELTS essay component marked?
Fairness and accuracy are critically important when marking IELTS writing tasks. Your essay will be marked by at least two experienced IELTS examiners on the following criteria:
Task response - Whether you answered the question fully and supported your answer well.
Coherence and cohesion - How well you linked your ideas together.
Lexical resource - Whether you used a wide range of vocabulary correctly and appropriately.
Grammatical range and accuracy - How many grammatical structures you used accurately and appropriately.
Each of these criteria is worth 25 percent of your total score for the essay writing task. Both of your writing tasks are used to calculate your overall writing band score.
Step 1: Plan your time
The Writing test (consisting of Writing tasks 1 and 2) takes approximately 60 minutes. Plan to spend around 20 minutes on your first task, and 40 minutes on your essay task. A sample plan for your time might be:
5 to 10 minutes reading the essay question and planning your answer
15 to 20 minutes writing your first draft
10 minutes proofreading and editing your essay
Step 2: Read the question
While you may be anxious to jump straight into writing, make sure you take the time to carefully read the essay question. If you misunderstand the question, you risk writing an essay that does not address the issues properly which will lower your score.
Step 3: Highlight the issues to address
There will be multiple issues that you will need to address in your essay. Addressing each issue individually is key to achieving a high essay score. Highlight each individual issue that you will need to address.
Step 4: Outline your response
Create an outline of how you will respond to the issues in your essay. This will serve as your ‘blueprint’ when you write your first draft. As a general rule your essay should have:
An introduction stating what you will talk about
Two or three body paragraphs, each addressing one issue or idea
A conclusion summing up what was discussed in the essay
Make sure you note which idea or issue you will address in each paragraph. Check that the issues you highlighted are all accounted for in your outline.
Step 5: Expand on your ideas
Write some notes about any key points or ideas you’d like to include in each paragraph. When you’re writing your first draft, these notes will help to make sure you don’t forget any ideas you want to include.