Scoring well on IELTS writing can be a long journey for some. Many people out there meet minimum requirements (or even score quite well – 8.0 or above) on the reading, listening, and speaking sections of IELTS but fail to reach beyond the 6.5 mark in writing.

Why is this the case?

While there can be a few reasons behind this (bad handwriting, poor spelling, and so on), one of the biggest reasons is that most of the test-takers don’t practice their writing muscle day-to-day. Think about it – you might read, listen, or speak in English quite frequently, but when was the last time you wrote an opinion essay or a formal letter to someone else?

In this module you will look at the two tasks involved in the IELTS Academic Training test

For Task 1

• • • You will learn how to identify different types of visuals.
    • You will identify and describe the topic and the main features of these visuals.
    • You will learn how to write an overview paragraph to summarise the key information.
    • You will learn about what language to use to describe data, as well as how to select, and group information.
    • You will also look at the language used for ordering ideas in paragraphs.
    • You will read sample answers for each type of visual and practise the skills learnt.

For Task 2

• • • You are going to take a closer look at the essay question to help you answer all its parts.
    • You will examine ways of planning and organising your essay.
    • You will analyse the different parts of an IELTS essay.
    • You will look in more detail at some possible task types in Task 2, and learn how they are structured.
    • You will then look at how to write a good essay with good structure and appropriate language.
    • You will have a chance to practise writing an introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion.

PLEASE NOTE

You should go through this section and sub-sections to get familiar with the types of questions you would actually encounter in your real IELTS test. The sample answer(s) added to each question is/are to help you generate some ideas on how to approach a question and not for memorising. Instead, you should take note of the vocabulary and grammatical structures used for each type of Task 1 and Task 2 question.

I do not recommend you memorise the sample answers. Instead of trying to take shortcuts that never work, put in the effort to actually improve your English such as reading and listening to as much authentic English as possible.