About IELTS Scores

What IELTS score do I need?

When you’re planning to take the IELTS test, it’s important to know what grade you need. If you’re taking the test to apply for a university place, the score required can vary based on the level of the course, what subject you want to study and by which university you’re applying for. If you’re taking the course for a visa, the requirements can vary county by country. Keep in mind that most people don’t need a band eight or nine. While it’s nice to get these scores, you shouldn’t feel like you must get a top score to achieve your goals.

How is the IELTS test graded?

The IELTS writing test is graded in four areas:

1. Task response
2. Coherence and Cohesion
3. Lexical Resource
4. Grammatical Range and Accuracy

For each of these, the examiner gives you a grade from one to nine. The average of these four grades becomes your final exam score for the exam.

Task Response

Task response is all about giving a detailed answer to the question. Your examiners are looking for three things for your task response score:

1. Did you address the whole of the question?
2. Did you present a clear position?
3. Did you have enough well-developed ideas?

Answering the whole question

This section looks at how well you’ve answered the question. Taking a look at the criteria, we can see that knowing the question types can make a big difference but also that not knowing the question types is an easy way to lose points.

Band 4

Responds to the task only in a minimal way or the answer is tangential; the format may be inappropriate.

Band 5

Addresses the task only partially; the format may be appropriate in places.

Band 6

Addresses all parts of the task although some parts may be more fully covered than others.

Band 7

Addresses all parts of the task.

Presenting a position

This part of task response is all about having a clear argument. The key part to remember from the grading criteria is that the examiners are looking for this argument to be there “throughout the response”. This means that it’s not enough to just do this in the conclusion. You should give your position in the thesis statement portion of your introduction. Next, you should back up that position in your body paragraphs. Finally, you should restate your position in the conclusion.

Band 4

Presents a position but this is unclear.

Band 5

Expresses a position but the development is not always clear and there may be no conclusion drawn.

Band 6

Presents a relevant position although the conclusion may become unclear or repetitive.

Band 7

Presents a clear position throughout the response.

Developing ideas

The final thing to pay attention to get a good score in task response is how well developed your ideas are. The main place where you can demonstrate this is in your body paragraphs. You should pick one specific idea for each of these body paragraphs and then develop it with explanations, arguments and examples.

Band 4

Presents some main ideas but these are difficult to identify and may be repetitive, irrelevant or not well supported.

Band 5

Presents some main ideas but these are limited and not sufficiently developed; there may be irrelevant detail.

Band 6

Presents relevant main ideas but some may be inadequately developed/unclear.

Band 7

Presents, extends and supports main ideas, but there may be a tendency to over-generalise and/or supporting ideas may lack focus.

Coherence and Cohesion

Coherence and cohesion is about how well you organise your ideas and how well those ideas flow into one another. When grading this section, your examiner will be looking at how your ideas progress, how you use cohesive devices, how well you use referencing and how well you form paragraphs. In this post we’ll take a look at what each of those things means as well and how to improve your score in this area.

Progression

Progression is about being able to follow an argument throughout the whole essay. This can overlap quite significantly with what the examiners are looking for in the task response section. You can show progression by having run through your introduction, body paragraphs and conclusion. In the introduction, use your thesis statement to give a clear argument to the examiners. You can also use the introduction to introduce what your body paragraphs will say. In your body paragraphs, have a clear topic sentence which is linked to your central argument. The supporting sentences in the body paragraph should link to that paragraph’s topic sentence. Finally, use your conclusion to remind the examiner of what your body paragraphs were about and to emphasise your thesis statement.

Band 4

There is no clear progression in the response.

Band 5

There may be a lack of overall progression

Band 6

There is a clear overall progression.

Band 7

There is a clear progression throughout.

Cohesive devices

Cohesive devices are short phrases that don’t carry meaning on their own but show the relationship between different parts of your writing. Students often want to study cohesive devices by memorising a long list of them. However, it’s a much better idea to learn a few and be able to use them perfectly.

Band 4

Uses some basic cohesive devices but these may be inaccurate or repetitive.

Band 5

Makes inadequate, inaccurate or over-use of cohesive devices.

Band 6

Uses cohesive devices effectively, but cohesion within and/or between sentences may be faulty or mechanical.

Band 7

Uses a range of cohesive devices appropriately although there may be some under/over use.

Referencing

Referencing is about using pronouns and relative pronouns to make your writing less repetitive. It’s best to demonstrate why this is important so here’s an example:

Congestion charges have been opposed by regular commuters. Regular commuters argue that congestion charges make it too expensive for regular commuters to get to work every day.

Congestion charges have been opposed by regular commuters. They argue that these charges make it too expensive for them to get to work.

From this example, we can see that without referencing our writing would get boring quickly. However, we also should not fall into the trap of using pronouns too often. Make sure it’s always clear who you’re referring to.

Paragraphing

The final aspect of coherence and cohesion is paragraphing. We can see that the examiners are looking for a “clear central topic” for each paragraph. What that means practically is that you should pick a quite narrow topic for each of these paragraphs

There are two ways of making paragraphs in English. The first is to indent your paragraphs, the second is to leave a line between your paragraphs. Both of these are acceptable for the IELTS exam but I always recommend students to leave a line because it makes your paragraphs as obvious as possible to the examiner.

Band 4

May not write in paragraphs or their use may be confusing.

Band 5

May not write in paragraphs or paragraphing may be inaccurate.

Band 6

Uses paragraphing but not always logically.

Band 7

Presents a clear central topic within each paragraph.

Lexical Resource

Lexical resource is all about the words you use. In many ways, it should be the most simple part of the IELTS grading criteria to understand. However, it’s also the area with the most misconceptions around it. This article will take a look at the grading criteria, unpack what those criteria mean and explore what mistakes people make around lexical resource.

Band 4

Uses only basic vocabulary which may be used repetitively or which may be inappropriate for the task

Has limited control of word formation and/or spelling; errors may cause strain for the reader

Band 5

Uses a limited range of vocabulary, but this is minimally adequate for the task.

May make noticeable errors in spelling and/or word formation that may cause some difficulty for the reader.

Band 6

Uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task

Attempts to use less common vocabulary but with some inaccuracy

Makes some errors in spelling and/or word formation, but they do not impede communication.

Band 7

Uses less common lexical items with some awareness of style and collocation

May produce occasional errors in word choice, spelling and/or word formation

Range of vocabulary

The first thing the examiners are looking for in task lexical resource is a wide range of vocabulary. The band descriptors ask for ‘flexibility and precision’ at higher levels and this means that you should use words that are more specific. An illustrative example of this might be describing a meal. If I say I had a meal that was ‘good’, it doesn’t give you much information about what that meal was actually like. However, if I say a meal was ‘spicy’, ‘earthy’, or ‘refined’, you have a much better idea of what it was like. Another aspect of vocabulary range is making sure you don’t overuse words. Obviously, common words like ‘the’ don’t apply here, but if you find yourself using the same word too frequently, you should look for a synonym (a word with the same meaning).

Next, we need to pay attention to errors in usage. Errors can take the form of spelling errors, word formation errors or word choice errors. A word-formation error means using the wrong form of a word. For example, writing ‘I swim good’ instead of ‘I swim well’. A word choice error is more about using a word that isn’t suitable or typically used, for example, ‘I fired a candle’.

The final thing to pay attention to, especially if your goal is a band 7 or above, is collocation. Collocation describes words that ‘go together in a language. A famous example of this is that in English, we almost always say ‘it rained heavily’ not ‘it rained strongly’. There’s no reason for this except that people say ‘it rained heavily’ so often that other people have learned it by copying them. The best way to learn collocation is to expose yourself to as much English as possible, this might be through books, TV shows, movies, podcasts or real-life conversations. It doesn’t matter where this exposure to English comes from too much; it’s more important that you pick something you enjoy so you can build a good habit.

What are some common lexical resource mistakes?

Using rare words for no reason

One issue I’ve seen over and over again is that students want to use uncommon words rather than wanting to use more specific words. Above I said that ‘spicy’ is more specific than ‘good’ for describing a meal but what if I said ‘piquant’ instead of spicy? ‘Piquant’ is another word that means ‘spicy’ but is less commonly used. Students might think that it’s better for the IELTS to describe a food as ‘piquant’ and not ‘spicy’ because it is a ‘rarer’ or ‘more advanced’ word. However, these two words are equally specific so ‘piquant’ isn’t better than ‘spicy’. If anything ‘piquant’ sounds a little strange because it’s so rare.

Memorising word lists

Another mistake learners make is that they often love to memorise word lists. While this is better than doing nothing, it’s a really ineffective way of learning words. One reason for this is that people are better at memorising things that are meaningful for them. However, when you read a word list, it’s fairly meaningless. Another reason is that even when you can remember what a word means, that doesn’t mean you can use it effectively in a sentence. Learners who do this might end up using a word in a way that sounds very out of place and this can negatively impact their task response score. A much better way of learning new words is to get as much exposure to English as possible as I’ve described above.

Using idioms or sayings

The last mistake students make is using idioms and sayings in the IELTS writing exam. An idiom is a phrase where the meaning does not match the meaning of the words. Examples of idioms include ‘it’s my cup of tea’, ‘it’s raining cats and dogs’ and or ‘I smell a rat’. These mean ‘I like it’, ‘it’s raining heavily’ and ‘something seems suspicious’ but if you didn’t know the meanings of these, you’d struggle to work it out from the words themselves. A saying is an expression that offers some common wisdom such as ‘actions speak louder than words’, ‘better late than never’ or ‘time is money’. Both of these aren’t really appropriate for academic writing and won’t improve your lexical resource score.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy

Grammatical range and accuracy is, just like it sounds, all about using a wide range of grammatical structures accurately. However, there’s more to it than just trying to use as much grammar as possible. In this guide, we will look at what the requirements are and what you can do to meet them.

Band 4

Uses only a very limited range of structures with only rare use of subordinate clauses
some structures are accurate but errors predominate, and punctuation is often faulty

Band 5

Uses only a limited range of structures
attempts complex sentences but these tend to be less accurate than simple sentences may make frequent grammatical errors and punctuation may be faulty; errors can cause some difficulty for the reader

Band 6

Uses a mix of simple and complex sentence forms.

makes some errors in grammar and punctuation but they rarely reduce communication

Band 7

Uses a variety of complex structures.

Produces frequent error-free sentences

Has good control of grammar and punctuation but may make a few errors.

Accuracy versus range

One thing students don’t realise about grammatical accuracy and range is that having a wide range is more important than having perfect accuracy. You could write perfectly without making any mistakes at all and still only get a band four if those perfect sentences were all simple. On the other hand, an essay with a wide range of grammar and some mistakes can do quite well. Even a band six will let you have ‘some errors’. One piece of advice I often give to students is to ‘be brave’ with their grammar. It’s better to try something more complex and risk not getting it perfect.

Complex versus complicated

The word ‘complex’ gets used a lot when talking about grammar in the IELTS grading. It’s important, however, to know the difference between complex and complicated. Complex means something has a lot of parts while complicated means something is difficult to understand. We might say that for grammar, complex grammar is hard to put together but complicated grammar is hard to read and understand. In the IELTS test we do want our sentences to be complex but we really don’t want them to be complicated. You should try and include more than one idea in your sentences to add complexity, but you don’t need to do more than that and make your writing complicated.

What types of grammar should I use?

The most important thing to remember when you’re thinking of what types of grammar to include is to think about including more than one idea in a sentence. There are three types of complex grammar we always recommend for students who are new to the IELTS. These are easy to include in an essay on any topic. These are:

If sentences

If cities want to improve their residents’ quality of life, they need to reduce traffic congestion.

Although sentences

Although taking the subway is sometimes uncomfortable, it is a very efficient way to commute.

Appositives

Introducing a congestion charge, which is a fee to drive in certain areas of a city, can also discourage drivers.

If you want to find out more about these three types of grammar, you can read about them here or watch this video.

Improving your accuracy

Of course, just because range is more important than accuracy, that doesn’t mean you should ignore range. To become a more accurate writer, you need to practice and you need to get feedback. Practice is important because just reading about grammar isn’t enough. You need to practice using that grammar to remember it. However, if you just practice, you might make mistakes that you don’t notice and fail to correct them. For that reason, it’s important to get frequent feedback on your writing.

For most students, increasing their grammar response isn’t about learning a lot of new grammar. It’s more important to focus on learning a few flexible pieces of grammar and use them well. The best approach is to focus on flexible grammar like the types in this article. Keep practising these and get some feedback on your writing to check that you’re using them correctly.