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Task 1 and Task 2 for both modules, with model answers and a Band 5 answer carrying the examiner corrections. 115 pages, free.
This is the longest book in the set, and the one most people need most. It covers Task 1 and Task 2 for both modules: the General Training letter, Academic charts, graphs, maps and processes, and the essay that both modules write.
The part worth reading first is the Band 5 answer with the examiner corrections marked on it. Model answers show you the target, which is useful but abstract. A corrected Band 5 answer shows you the gap, which is the thing you can actually act on.
Writing is where the largest number of candidates sit a band below where they expect to be, and almost always for reasons that are visible once someone points them out.
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PDF, 115 pages, free
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What is inside
Six sections, in the order they appear.
Line graphs, bar charts, pie charts, tables, maps and process diagrams. What each one needs, and why the language of change is wrong for a process.
Formal, semi formal and personal, with the register decision made explicit rather than left to instinct. All three bullet points, covered properly.
Opinion, discussion, advantages and disadvantages, problem and solution, and two part questions. Each one needs a different structure.
The candidate's own text, with the errors marked and the correction alongside, plus commentary explaining why each one costs marks.
Task Achievement, Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource, and Grammatical Range and Accuracy, described in terms of what an examiner is looking at.
For every task type, so you can see the target as well as the gap.
Method
Six things worth doing, and one worth avoiding.
It is the fastest way to recognise your own habits, and it makes everything else in the book land harder.
Do not read the Academic chart chapters if you are sitting General Training. They are different tasks.
Answering a discussion question as though it were an opinion question is a Task Achievement problem, and it caps your band regardless of your English.
Write your own answer before reading the model. Reading the model first tells you almost nothing about your own writing.
Four criteria, four passes over your own draft. It is slow at first and quick within a fortnight.
At some point you need someone to mark your actual writing. A book cannot do that, and neither can a model answer.
Practice
Five questions on the two tasks and how they are marked.
Task Achievement is where bands are lost first. Before grammar, before vocabulary.
A discussion question asks for both views and your own. An opinion question asks for one position, held throughout.
Getting the task type wrong caps your band no matter how good the English is.
1What is the minimum word count for Task 2?
250 words. Task 1 is at least 150. Going under either minimum is penalised, and examiners do count.
2Academic Task 1 shows a process diagram. Which language do you need?
The passive and sequencing language. A process has stages, not trends. Describing a process with rose and fell is one of the clearest signs of a memorised approach.
3In General Training Task 1, you are writing to a friend. Which register?
Personal. Formal is for someone you do not know, semi formal for someone you know in a professional context. Getting this wrong costs marks before the language is even assessed.
4An essay asks you to discuss both views and give your own opinion. You give only your opinion. What happens?
Task Achievement is capped. You have not done the task set. Strong English cannot lift that criterion once the task has been misread.
5How many criteria is IELTS writing marked against?
Four. Task Achievement, Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource, and Grammatical Range and Accuracy, each equally weighted.
You can learn the task types, the structures and the criteria from a book. You cannot find out what is wrong with your own writing from one, because that requires someone to read it.
IELTStestONLINE assesses your writing against the four criteria as often as you like, with video lessons on every task type and a support tutor you can ask when a correction does not make sense. Take a look at the complete course
The corrected Band 5 answer in the book is the closest thing to feedback that a PDF can offer.
For feedback on your own writing rather than someone else's, IELTStestONLINE marks it against the four criteria and keeps every score in one place. See what full membership includes
Yes. It downloads directly with no signup, no email address and no account.
Yes. Task 1 is covered separately for each module, since they are different tasks, and Task 2 is covered once because it is the same task in both.
A real candidate answer at Band 5, with the errors marked and the correction alongside, plus commentary on why each one costs marks. It is the most useful section in the book.
115 pages, which makes it the longest book in the set.
No. A book cannot assess your writing. It can show you what each band looks like, which is the next best thing.
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Reading a Band 9 answer tells you where you are going. It does not tell you what is stopping you getting there, and that is the information that actually moves a score.
IELTStestONLINE assesses your writing and speaking against the four IELTS criteria, instantly and as often as you like, using a system built by a former IELTS examiner and examiner trainer. It carries no advertising.
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