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An IELTS writing examiner explains why how much you write in IELTS is very important.

So, last week, while examining, I had 2 candidates that had written over 500 words.  One was obviously a native or near-native speaker who was a highly competent writer.  Their Task 2 was like reading a newspaper article.  It introduced the debate from the question, looked at different ideas in detail then pulled it all together to make a very interesting conclusion.  Excellent writing and it was awarded Band 9.0.  It was better than anything I could produce!

The other was written by someone who was obviously not a high user of English.  What they wrote was probably exactly the same as what came out of their mouth.  It was full of mistakes and coherence dropped considerably.  It was full of repetition and it got me thinking, why do people like this do IELTS?

It is clear that they hadn’t prepared at all for the exam and they just did what they thought was right.  Now, I have done exams all my life, at school, university, in 2 foreign languages as an adult, and further education in teaching.  Never have I gone to an exam thinking I am good enough and can do what I like in the test.  Why do some people do IELTS thinking they are better than they are?

I did an online writing 1-to1 session with a doctor from India last week (You can book these here), and he brought some writing to have a look at together (live marking).  In just one Task 2, he made around 15 mistakes with a/an/the.  He said he was very embarrassed to be making such a mistake as it was one of the first things they learnt at school in English class, but here he was, making that exact mistake.  The problem here is that all his teachers also probably had the same problem and so it was never ‘fixed’.  These problems are incredibly difficult to solve as this doctor had not been using articles for the best part of 20 years.

This is where a lot of IELTS candidates have problems.  Their writing isn’t good enough.  Why?
The main reasons I see are

• They haven’t prepared properly
• They think they are better than they actually are
• They don’t know what they need to do in IELTS writing to get higher marks.
• Their teacher doesn’t have good enough English to help them
• They don’t write enough.

These are the main problems but everyone is different.

So, how can you avoid making the same mistakes and wasting your money on doing the IELTS exam and not getting what you need?

Easy.  Get an IELTS writing examiner like me or my colleagues here at upmyielts.com to check your writing.  We help hundreds of people every month and nearly everyone that uses our service is recommended to us by people they know.  We are the difference between a Band 6 in writing, and Band 7.  We will also tell you whether you should book an exam or not.  We don’t want you to waste your money doing an exam that won’t get you what you need.

We are here to help you move on with your life and forget about IELTS (Well, for 2 years at least!).  There is nowhere like us on the internet.  We are the only place that uses IELTS examiners for IELTS speaking and writing.