The single most consequential sentence on the official IELTS Writing format pages is one most candidates never act on:
"Task 2 contributes twice as much as Task 1 to the Writing score."
That is ielts.org's own wording, and it appears identically on both the Academic and the General Training format pages. The essay is officially worth double — which is exactly why the official timing is lopsided: about 20 minutes for Task 1, about 40 for Task 2. Yet in the exam room, candidates routinely polish the Task 1 graph or letter for half an hour and then sprint through the task that carries twice the weight.
There is a second thing most guides get wrong, and it is more recent. In May 2023, IELTS updated the public Writing band descriptors — and rewrote the lines the entire prep industry still quotes. If a guide tells you Band 6 means your essay "addresses all parts of the task", it is quoting a document that no longer describes how your essay is marked.
The failure
Two failures, really, and they compound.
The time split. Both tasks must be completed — the official page says so flatly: "There are two Writing tasks and BOTH must be completed." But they are not equals. Give Task 1 thirty minutes and you have traded time on the double-weighted task for polish on the single-weighted one. The official suggestion — "You should spend no more than 20 minutes" on Task 1, no more than 40 on Task 2 — is not a gentle tip. It is the timing that matches the scoring.
The stale checklist. Candidates memorise "address all parts of the task" as the target, then plan essays around a phrase examiners no longer use. The current Band 6 Task Response line is "The main parts of the prompt are addressed (though some may be more fully covered than others)" — different wording, and a different emphasis: the prompt and its main parts, with explicit tolerance for uneven coverage at Band 6.
What Task 2 actually is
On the Academic test:
"In Task 2, you are given a point of view, argument or problem which you need to discuss."
On General Training, the official page specifies "a semi-formal/neutral discursive essay of a minimum of 250 words" on "a topic of general interest, such as: whether children's leisure activities should be educational; how environmental problems can be solved; whether smoking should be banned in public places."
Either way: at least 250 words, in about 40 minutes, marked on four criteria named on the official scoring page — Task Response, Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource, and Grammatical Range and Accuracy. And per ielts.org: "The criteria are weighted equally and the score on the task is the average." No criterion is a tiebreaker. A memorable argument with broken grammar and a grammatically clean essay that dodges the prompt lose marks the same way — one criterion at a time.
Band 6 vs Band 7, in the examiner's own words
These are from the current official descriptors PDF (updated May 2023). Read the pairs side by side — the gap between 6 and 7 is specific, not vague.
Task Response. Band 6:
"The main parts of the prompt are addressed (though some may be more fully covered than others)… A position is presented that is directly relevant to the prompt, although the conclusions drawn may be unclear, unjustified or repetitive."
Band 7:
"The main parts of the prompt are appropriately addressed. A clear and developed position is presented. Main ideas are extended and supported but there may be a tendency to over-generalise…"
The move from 6 to 7 is not "more parts covered" — it is appropriately addressed, with a position that is clear and developed, and main ideas that are extended and supported. A relevant opinion stated but never built earns the Band 6 line, not the Band 7 one.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy. Band 6:
"A mix of simple and complex sentence forms is used but flexibility is limited. Errors in grammar and punctuation occur, but rarely impede communication."
Band 7:
"A variety of complex structures is used with some flexibility and accuracy. Grammar and punctuation are generally well controlled, and error-free sentences are frequent."
"Error-free sentences are frequent" is the load-bearing phrase. At Band 6 your errors merely have to stay out of the way of meaning. At Band 7 the examiner is looking for whole sentences with nothing wrong in them, often — which is why chasing one long, ambitious sentence at the cost of three slips works against the exact phrase the examiner is reading for.
The word-count rule, honestly
Here officialdom says two things that do not line up, so here are both.
The official format pages promise a penalty:
"You must write at least 250 words and will be penalised if your answer is too short."
But the current descriptors PDF — the document examiners rate against — contains no explicit word-count penalty rule at all. The only hard length rule inside the May 2023 band scale is this:
"Responses of 20 words or fewer are rated at Band 1."
We are not going to resolve that for you, because the official sources do not. The safe reading is the boring one: treat 250 words as the floor the test-taker-facing pages say it is, and know that length otherwise lives inside the band descriptions, not in a separate deduction table anyone can show you. Any site quoting an exact "words missing = bands lost" formula is not quoting IELTS.
One rule that is unambiguous, though — Band 0:
"Should only be used where a candidate did not attend or attempt the question in any way, used a language other than English throughout, or where there is proof that a candidate's answer has been totally memorised."
A totally memorised essay is officially a Band 0 matter. Memorised language also surfaces lower down the scale — Band 4 Lexical Resource flags "inappropriate use of lexical chunks (e.g. memorised phrases…)". Templates you rehearse are visible to the person marking them.
What actually costs you
- Spending Task 2 minutes on Task 1. The essay counts double — official wording, both format pages. Protect the 40 minutes.
- Writing to the pre-2023 descriptors. "Addresses all parts of the task" is dead wording. The current target is the prompt's main parts, appropriately addressed, with a developed position.
- A clear opinion with no development. Band 7 Task Response requires ideas "extended and supported" — stating a position is a Band 6 behaviour on its own.
- Complexity without control. "Error-free sentences are frequent" is what separates 7 from 6 in grammar. Ambition that breaks every sentence buys you nothing.
- Bullet points or notes. The official pages are explicit: "you must not use notes or bullet points" — connected text only.
- A memorised essay. Officially Band 0 territory if proven, and flagged lower down the scale long before that.
Try one
The gap between reading the Band 7 lines and producing them under a 40-minute clock is the whole game — and you only find your own gap by writing one and having it marked against these criteria.
[Write a marked Task 2 →] — one full task, marked, no card required.