While evaluating your writing scripts, IELTS examiners typically follow a process outlined below.
Step 1
They check whether you have addressed all aspects of the task. Your essay should answer all the questions in the task rubric. Likewise, your letter should address the three bullet points in the question. It is important to use appropriate tone and language in both essays and letters. You also need to ensure that your points support your opinion. This is very important. If ideas expressed in the body paragraphs fail to support your opinion, you will lose marks.
The examiner also checks whether your ideas are relevant. You have to write on the given topic. If you digress or fail to answer part of the question, you will not get a good score even if you write perfectly correct English. They will also check whether your answer is too long or too short. Remember your letter or report should be at least 150 words long and your essay should be at least 250 words long. If you write fewer than the required number of words, you will be penalized. There is no penalty as such for writing an excessively long answer; however, it is not recommended. First, you will not be able to write a 400 word essay in 40 minutes. Even if you manage to write it within the allotted time, a lengthy essay will invariably contain more mistakes. An essay containing too many mistakes will never get a good score.
Step 2
They read your answers and decide what band level it is based on the IELTS writing band score descriptors. They will check whether your answer fulfills all the criteria prescribed for that band level. They will also check whether your essay and letter/report has features that elevate or degrade it to the band level above or below. So, for example, if the examiner thinks that your essay is at 7 band level, they will also check whether it has features that elevate it to the next level – band 7.5 or 8. They will also check whether it contains mistakes that are considered typical of a band 6 or 6.5 essay.
While it is important to write the required number of words, you are unlikely to be penalized if your answer falls short by less than 10 words. However, you will lose 0.5 bands if you only write 131 to 140 words. If you write even fewer words you will lose 1 band or more.
The examiner will also check whether your answer is off-topic or not.
Memorized answers will also lose marks.
How do they calculate your overall band score?
Writing task 2 carries twice as much weight as writing task 1. That means your final score is not the average score of task 1 and task 2.
Here is how they calculate your final score: (Task 1 + Task 2 + Task 2)/3
Here is an example.
Task 1 score: band 8
Task 2 score: band 7
Overall band score: (8 + 7 + 7)/3 = 22/3 = 7.33
It will be rounded to 7.5
Another example:
Task 1 score: band 7
Task 2 score: band 6.5
Overall band score: (7 + 6.5 + 6.5)/3 = 20/3 = 6.66
It will be rounded to 6.5
While task 1 and task 2 are marked individually, IELTS does not release your individual score for these tasks. You will only know your overall writing score.
