IELTS Academic Writing Practice — Task 1 & Task 2

IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 and Task 2 — what the marking criteria actually penalise

Task 2 carries roughly twice the weight of Task 1 in your IELTS Academic Writing band score, which is why the standard time split — 20 minutes on Task 1, 40 minutes on Task 2 — exists. Task 1 asks you to describe a visual (graph, chart, table, map or diagram) in at least 150 words. The key discipline is reporting what the data shows without giving your opinion or explaining why the trends exist — you describe, you don't interpret. The most common Task 1 mistake is spending the entire first paragraph restating the question instead of moving straight into the key features.

Task 2 is a minimum-250-word essay scored on four criteria: Task Achievement, Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource, and Grammatical Range and Accuracy. Task Achievement is the one candidates underestimate most — if the question asks you to "discuss both views and give your own opinion," you need to do all three. Addressing only one view, or leaving your position unclear, is a direct Task Achievement penalty regardless of how well-written the rest of your essay is.

These IELTS Academic Writing practice tests give you AI feedback against all four marking criteria with a separate band for each task. That per-criterion breakdown is the useful part — knowing you're at 6.5 for Grammatical Range but 5.5 for Coherence and Cohesion tells you exactly what to work on next, rather than a single number that averages out your strengths and weaknesses. Expert human examiner review is also available for certified feedback with specific improvement notes on your actual response.