What happens if I write less than 250 words in IELTS Task 2?
The answer to this may surprise you and one of the IELTS writing examiners that works with us has this to say. The short answer is nothing. If you write 200 words, you are not penalised. If you write 100 words, you are not penalised. Until a few years ago, candidates lost Task Achievement marks for writing answers that were too short. For example, if you wrote 240 words, you were not penalised, but if you write 239 words then your...
What lowers your IELTS speaking mark?
Basically, the speaking test builds up to Part 3. Parts 1 and 2 are relatively easy as you can just talk about yourself. This is much easier to do in a foreign language. However, in Part 3, this is where the examiner doesn’t have to follow a rigid script and can push you to see what you can do in English. This is where you find out whether the candidate is Band 7+ as they are able to support what...
A question from a blog reader “I’ve done IELTS 3 times in the last 3 months and get (nearly) the same score every time (Not high enough). What is going on?”
One of the the IELTS examiners that works with us answered this one. You need to look at IELTS in a different way. IELTS is a level test. This means that is gives you an accurate reading of your writing, speaking, reading and listening. If you do a test like this in June, then again in July, you will find no difference as your level will not change that much in a month. Therefore, your score will be exactly the same. ...
Why do so many people get Band 6.5 in writing?
This is a very common problem for a lot of people and one of the IELTS examiners that works with us has this answer for you. Well, if you get 6.5 in Task 2 writing then it means you aren’t hitting Band 7 in all 4 criteria. What a lot of people don’t know is that if you get 7776, which is probably the most common score….. ……..you are awarded 6.5. IELTS writing rounds down. As you can see from the above...