Most people stuck at Band 6.5 in IELTS Writing assume the problem is their English. Usually it is not. Their Listening and Reading are 7 or higher, their Speaking is fine, and Writing sits stubbornly half a band below everything else. English that is good enough for a 7.5 in Reading does not suddenly become 6.0 English when you pick up a pen.
The problem is structure, and you can see why the moment you look at what Task 2 is actually marked on.
| Criterion | What it measures |
|---|---|
| Task Response | Did you answer the actual question, fully, with a clear position? |
| Coherence and Cohesion | Is it organised into paragraphs that progress logically? |
| Lexical Resource | Vocabulary range and accuracy |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | Sentence variety and how often you get it right |
Two of the four have nothing to do with how good your English is. Task Response and Coherence are both about organisation and answering the question — and they are worth half your score. That is why a candidate with strong English can sit at 6.5 for months, and why a fixed structure moves people faster than another vocabulary list does.
Here is the structure we teach. It is four paragraphs, it fits in 40 minutes, and it works for every Task 2 question type.
The shape: four paragraphs, 260–280 words
| Paragraph | Sentences | Words |
|---|---|---|
| Introduction | 2 | ~40 |
| Body 1 | 5 | ~110 |
| Body 2 | 5 | ~110 |
| Conclusion | 2 | ~30 |
The minimum is 250 words and going under it costs you marks automatically, so 260–280 gives you a safe margin without writing an essay you cannot finish. Do not aim for 350. Longer essays contain more errors and score lower, not higher.
The introduction: two sentences, and one of them is your position
Sentence one paraphrases the question. Sentence two states what you think. That is the entire introduction — no background sentence about how the world is changing rapidly, no definitions, nothing.
Some people believe that companies should be responsible for reducing pollution, while others think this is the government's job. Discuss both views and give your own opinion.
It is sometimes argued that responsibility for cutting pollution lies with private companies, while others maintain that this duty belongs to national governments.
I believe both have a role, but that governments must lead, because only they can enforce standards across an entire industry.
Note the second sentence. The words "I believe" are there deliberately. Examiners are looking for a clear position, and "this essay will discuss both sides" is not a position — it is an announcement. Candidates lose Task Response marks for it constantly, and they lose them again in the conclusion when there is still no opinion anywhere in the essay.
If the question says "give your own opinion", your opinion must appear in the introduction, not only at the end.
The body paragraphs: five sentences, five jobs
Each body paragraph does the same five things in the same order. Once you have drilled it, you stop planning paragraphs and start filling them.
- Topic sentence — the one idea this paragraph argues, in one sentence.
- Explanation — why that is true.
- Development — what follows from it, or what it causes.
- Example — one specific case.
- Link — tie it back to the question.
Here is a full body paragraph with each function marked, so you can see the skeleton under the prose.
(Topic) Governments are better placed to reduce pollution because they can regulate an entire sector at once.
(Explanation) A single company that voluntarily invests in cleaner equipment simply raises its own costs while its competitors do not, so responsible behaviour is punished by the market.
(Development) When a government sets a legal emissions limit instead, every firm in the sector faces the same cost, and the disadvantage disappears.
(Example) Delhi's restrictions on older commercial vehicles applied to all operators simultaneously, which is why compliance rose quickly rather than being absorbed by a handful of willing firms.
(Link) For this reason, regulation achieves what individual corporate goodwill cannot.
One thing about examples that surprises people: they do not have to be true. The examiner is not fact-checking your essay, and there are no marks for accuracy of content. What there are marks for is specificity. Compare:
| Weak | Strong |
|---|---|
| For example, many countries have done this. | For example, Sweden introduced a carbon tax in 1991. |
| Studies show young people are affected more. | A 2019 survey of 2,000 graduates found that 68% had changed field within three years. |
| Some students struggle with this. | A 21-year-old engineering student in Pune, for instance… |
Name a country, a year, an age, a percentage. Invented specifics score as examples; true generalities do not. That is an odd thing to be true about an English exam, but it is true, and knowing it is worth half a band to a lot of candidates.
Body 2 does exactly the same five jobs for the opposing view (or your second reason). If the question is "discuss both views", Body 1 is one view and Body 2 is the other — and your own opinion, already stated in the introduction, decides which one you develop more convincingly.
The conclusion: two sentences, no new ideas
In conclusion, while companies clearly have a duty to limit the harm they cause, governments hold the only tool that works across a whole industry.
Responsibility should therefore be shared, with the state setting the standard that firms are required to meet.
Sentence one restates your position. Sentence two closes it. Nothing new goes here — a fresh idea in the conclusion is a Coherence penalty, because you have raised something you never developed.
If you are running out of time, write a one-sentence conclusion rather than none. An essay with no conclusion is capped well below 7 on Coherence.
Where the 40 minutes goes
| Minutes | What you are doing |
|---|---|
| 0–5 | Plan. Underline the question type, decide your position, write four to six words for each body paragraph. Nothing else. |
| 5–10 | Introduction. |
| 10–20 | Body 1. |
| 20–30 | Body 2. |
| 30–35 | Conclusion. |
| 35–40 | Proofread. |
The five minutes of planning is the part everyone skips, and it is the part that protects Task Response. Candidates who start writing immediately routinely answer a slightly different question from the one on the paper — and Task Response is 25% of the mark.
Proofread for four things only, in this order:
- Third-person -s — "the government require" → "requires". This is the single most common error in Indian candidates' essays.
- Articles — a, an, the. Check every singular countable noun has one.
- Plurals — "many student" → "many students".
- Subject–verb agreement across a long sentence, where the subject and verb have drifted apart.
Do not use those five minutes to add a sentence or improve a word. You will introduce a new error, and you will not have time to catch it.
One last thing about vocabulary
A plain Band 7 essay beats a decorated Band 6 essay every time. Lexical Resource marks accuracy as well as range, so a word used slightly wrongly costs you more than a simple word used correctly.
"A plethora of pollution" is a worse sentence than "a lot of pollution". One is wrong; the other is merely plain.
Use the harder word only when you have seen it used in a real sentence and you are sure of the collocation. Otherwise write the plain one and spend the effort on structure, which is where the marks actually are.
Realistically, from a Band 5.5–6 starting point — which is where most Indian graduates begin — expect about three months to reach a reliable 7, and expect Writing to be the slowest of the four. The thing that moves it is not reading more model essays. It is writing one essay a week and having a person mark it against these four criteria, so the same error gets caught until it stops happening.
Our IELTS batches usually have around 6 learners so every essay gets individually corrected, and you sit six full-length timed mocks before the real thing. Academic and General Training, three months, ₹2,499/month. The demo class is free and it is a real class.