Understanding the IELTS Band Score Criteria

Listening and Reading are scored objectively from the number of correct answers, converted to a band on a fixed scale. Writing and Speaking are different — they're scored by trained examiners against four detailed criteria, each worth 25% of that section's band.

Task Achievement (Writing) or Task Response measures how fully and appropriately you address every part of the question — not just whether your English is fluent, but whether you actually answered what was asked.

Coherence and Cohesion measures how logically your ideas are organised: clear paragraphing, one main idea per paragraph, and linking words used naturally rather than forced in for the sake of it.

Lexical Resource measures the range and accuracy of your vocabulary — using topic-specific words correctly matters more here than using rare, complex words incorrectly.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy measures both the variety of sentence structures you use (simple and complex) and how accurately you use them. A candidate who only writes short, simple, error-free sentences will score lower here than one who attempts more complex structures with occasional minor errors.

Your Overall Band Score for Writing or Speaking is the average of these four criteria, and your final Overall Band Score across the whole test is the average of all four sections, rounded to the nearest whole or half band.