ielts-yasi.englishlab.net

Written Oct. 20, 2010

How the IELTS Writing Test is Scored

Several people have asked me to explain how the examiner determines the Writing Test score. This page should answer that question. However, the grading for the Writing Test has changed a little since I was an examiner so some things on this page are just my estimation of how the examiners grade the writing today. The two official "Writing Band Descriptors" shown below are from 2005 and I believe these haven't changed since then, but the "Score Sheet" is my guess at what happens now.

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• First, the examiners gives a separate grade for each of Task 1 and Task 2, using the "Band Descriptors" that are shown below.

• They calculate the score for each Task by getting the average score of the following four items:

1) Task Achievement (for Task 1) or Task Response (for Task 2)

2) Coherence & Cohesion

3) Lexical Resource (= vocabulary) and,

4) Grammatical Range and Accuracy.

 

I am guessing that if the average score is a ".25" or a ".75" number, the examiner then goes down to the nearest ".0" or ".5" number.

For example:

 

Task Achievement	7
Coherence & Cohesion	6
Vocabulary	6
Grammar	6

Average = 6.25 => 6.0

 

Task Achievement	6
Coherence & Cohesion	7
Vocabulary	7
Grammar	7

Average = 6.75 => 6.5

 

• Then the examiners use a "Score Sheet" that blends the score for the Task 1 with the score for the Task 2 to give a final Writing Test score. On this score sheet, the Task 2 score is given more weighting than the Task 1 score.

(A copy of the Task 1 Band Descriptors can be downloaded here:  ielts-yasi.englishlab.net/TASK_1_WRITING_GRADING_CRITERIA.JPG)

(A copy of the Task 2 Band Descriptors can be downloaded here:  ielts-yasi.englishlab.net/TASK_2_WRITING_GRADING_CRITERIA.JPG)

The Writing Test Score Sheet

(Note that this is just my estimation of what the current score sheet looks like. I might be wrong in some places but I think this score sheet should be close to the real thing.)

Example: A Task 1 score of 6.5 combined with a Task 2 score of 5.0 gives a final score for the Writing Test of 5.5

(A copy of this Score Sheet can be downloaded here: ielts-yasi.englishlab.net/WRITING_SCORE_SHEET.JPG)

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