IELTS Writing Task 2: How to Reach Band 7 in 2026

In short: Writing Task 2 is a 250-word essay scored on four criteria - task response, coherence and cohesion, lexical resource, and grammatical range and accuracy - and Band 7 requires a clear position that is developed all the way through, not sophisticated vocabulary. Most candidates stuck at 6.5 lose marks on development and paragraph control, not on grammar. WispGold is an independent exam-preparation provider and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or an official representative of IELTS or the British Council, IDP or Cambridge. Confirm current formats and band descriptors on the official IELTS website.

Task response is the criterion where the biggest marks are quietly lost. Band 7 asks that your position is relevant, clear and consistently developed throughout. That means every paragraph must push your central argument forward with a specific reason, an explanation and a concrete example. A paragraph that states an idea and then restates it in different words contributes nothing; the examiner is marking depth, not length.

Coherence and cohesion reward paragraphing discipline. One central idea per paragraph, a clear topic sentence, and linking that connects ideas logically rather than mechanically. Band 7 explicitly warns against overusing connectives: a first sentence of "moreover" and "furthermore" in every paragraph reads as memorised. Use reference words - this policy, such a system, these families - to stitch sentences together, and reserve discourse markers for real turns in the argument.

Lexical resource at Band 7 means precision and awareness of style, not rare words. Examiners notice when a candidate writes "the plethora of vehicular congestion" where they mean "too much traffic". Better to use a small set of topic-specific terms accurately - rehabilitation, screening, early intervention for health essays; renewable subsidies, carbon pricing for environment essays - with some flexibility to rephrase. One or two well-chosen collocations per paragraph beat a paragraph of thesaurus words.

Grammatical range and accuracy at Band 7 requires a variety of complex structures with frequent error-free sentences. Frequent is the operative word: errors are acceptable, error-dense sentences are not. The safest way to show range is to alternate sentence types deliberately - a conditional, a concession ("although X, Y"), a passive where it is natural, and a relative clause - and to keep the rest simple and correct. Never trade clarity for a structure you are unsure of.

Use the planning time. You get the whole paper in one booklet and nobody stops you thinking for five minutes before writing. Decide your position in one sentence, list two to four main ideas that support it, and one example for each. An essay planned in five minutes is finished on time; an essay started immediately usually runs out of steam at paragraph three and loses both development marks and the conclusion.

Prepare ideas, not essays. Task 2 questions recycle a small set of themes: health, education, technology, environment, work, crime, government spending and family. For each theme, build a bank of six to eight arguments and examples you genuinely understand - from your own clinical work if you are a healthcare professional, which is a real advantage. Candidates who memorise full essays produce irrelevant, template-heavy answers that examiners spot in the first two sentences.

Timing discipline decides borderline results. Plan for five minutes, write for thirty, check for five. In the check, hunt for three specific things: subject-verb agreement, articles (the most common error for speakers of many languages), and whether your last paragraph actually concludes rather than introduces a new idea. Count words once; 260 to 290 well-developed words beats 380 padded ones, because everything over the plan dilutes development.

A four-week plan works. Week one: write two essays per week against model answers, and mark your own work against the four public band descriptors. Week two: focus exclusively on one criterion per essay - development one day, paragraphing the next. Week three: add timed conditions and a feedback partner or tutor who marks against the descriptors. Week four: two full timed essays per week under exam conditions, plus your error log from the previous three weeks.

Most candidates who plateau at 6.5 are writing accurate English that says very little. Pick a position, defend it in every paragraph, and keep the language precise rather than fancy, and Band 7 is a realistic target within weeks. Our IELTS course pairs weekly marked essays with examiner-style feedback mapped to each criterion, so you can see exactly which of the four areas is holding your score down.