BANDS DESCRIPTION WRITING

Everyone says you should give Extended Answers to get a high band score for task achievement. But how extended should they be?

Let’s not talk about bands 0-4 because if these were your bands, you wouldn’t be reading this post now. So let’s focus on bands 5-9. Let’s imagine that we are writing an essay about health. I’ll try to show you the difference between bands using a simple example. At least, this example usually helped my students, so I assume that it can help you as well.

🖍Band 5: ‘Doing exercises is good for health.’ 

Comment: TOO GENERAL. What exercises? What does ‘good’ mean? So it’s 5.

🖌Band 6 ‘Doing exercises such as swimming and jogging is beneficial for health.’ 

Comment: NOT EXTENDED ENOUGH. We know what exercises are good but we still don’t know why they are good. Although ‘beneficial’ looks a bit better than just ‘good’, it doesn’t bear a lot of meaning.

🖋Band 7+: ‘Doing exercises such as swimming and jogging is beneficial for health. These exercises, if done regularly, stimulate a person’s cardiovascular system, leading to something bla-bla-bla. Another positive outcome is developing muscles + bla-bla-bla. 

Comment: FULLY EXTENDED. You say what is good for health, give examples of this good activity, explain why it is good, under what conditions, where and when.

Now let’s analyse some real piece of writing.

📮Topic: Some people believe that zoos where animals are kept in man-made environment should no longer exist in the 21st century. Do you agree or disagree?

📌Main Body Paragraph 1: Undoubtedly, the main necessity zoos are created for is preserving rare species of animals from extinction. This includes research programmes aimed at breeding and expanding the populations of these species as it is in zoos that animals receive medical care, food and safety. One more beneficial function no one would dare to gainsay is providing shelter and care to those that are either too young or too weak to survive in the wild. For this reason, we can certainly say that if it weren’t for zoos, the majority of vulnerable animals would be doomed to death.

🧮ESSAY ANALYSIS: 

Comment: The first sentence presents the idea that zoos are important to preserve rare species of animals from extinction. It’s good. Then the second statement gives some explanation of how zoos can help to preserve rare species. This makes this paragraph more or less extended, so this essay can score 6 for task achievement. Now let’s read the second sentence one more time carefully. ‘bla-bla-bla...animals receive medical care, food and safety…’ What kind of medical care? Why is it important that they are fed in zoos? What does the author of this paragraph mean by ‘safety’? Let’s read the third sentence. ‘bla-bla-bla… too weak to survive in the wild’. Again, what threats do they have? Why does the author think that they won’t survive?

📊TASK ACHIEVEMENT: So, task achievement is definitely better than 5, but not so good to score 7. I guess task achievement here would be 6.

🔍COHERENCE & COHESION: This paragraph is fully coherent. The author uses both linking words and phrases such as ‘undoubtedly’, ‘for this reason’ and linking devices such as ‘this includes’, ‘one more beneficial function is…’. It would definitely score either 7 or even 8.

🔍VOCABULARY: Vocabulary is probably not good enough for 8, but it’s definitely worth 7.

🔍GRAMMAR: ‘are created’ (passive voice), ‘it is in zoos that animals receive…’ (cleft sentence), ‘providing’ (gerund), (either … or…), ‘if it weren’t for zoos, the majority of vulnerable animals would be doomed to death’ (conditional type 2) This would give 7 or even 8. 

If the whole essay was of the same quality, this would be 6 + 7 + 7 + 7 = 7,0 or even 6 + 8 + 7 + 8 = 7,5

📜IELTS Writing assessment criteria - explained in a simple way! What do IELTS examiners look at?  

📋Task Achievement

🔖1) Your ideas should be relevant. This means that if you were asked about one specific thing, for example, about the way computers influence children's academic success, don't write about the advantages and disadvantages of using computers in general. Stick to the point! 

🔖2) Your arguments should be extended. This means that a reader shouldn't be an expert in this topic, but your explanation should be so detailed that this person wouldn't have any questions after reading your essay. 

🔖3) You must state your position, and it should be clear throughout the essay. 

📋Coherence & Cohesion 

🔖1) Your essay should be well structured. It should include the introduction, supporting paragraphs (usually 2 or 3) and the conclusion. Your reasoning should be presented in a logical way.

🔖2) Your essay should be really easy to read. So if there are too many long and complicated sentences which come one after another, the examiner will have to re-read some parts several times. As a result, you will be marked down. 

🔖3) You should use linking words and phrases such as 'As a result' or linking devices such as 'This will lead to...' in order to help a reader follow your train of thought.

📋Vocabulary

📮1) You should use topical vocabulary. This is vocabulary that is suitable for some particular topic and cannot be used in any essay. For example, you can use the verb 'to argue' in all essays, so it's not topical, but the expression 'exhaust fumes' IS topical as it can be naturally used only in essays about environment or traffic. 

📮2) The more complicated words, the better. But, again, don't overdo. It is enough to use 2 or 3 uncommon words per paragraph to show how clever you are. If there are too many of them, your essay will not read well, and the examiner will just think you are trying to impress them.

📋Grammar

🧷1) The fewer mistakes, the better. But don't think that examiners read your essays with a magnifying glass and pay attention to every minor mistake. Stop worrying about it. 

🧷2) The more diverse and complicated structures you use, the better. I always say to my students that examiners do not have a clairvoyant ability. So if you don’t show in your essay that you can use a variety of grammatical structures, how can they know that you are a very knowledgeable student and deserve a high score? They can assess just what they can see.