Task Achievement

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The first column of the rubric is task achievement. This is about making sure you describe accurately and with the correct amount of detail. This is an area that with good preparation, and by following all the steps on this website, you can really improve your writing score.

 

A band three means that you have misunderstood the question completely but have attempted to answer the question. 

 

A band five answer is missing a general overview or is missing important data in the description. This tends to be due to a lack of planning.

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A band seven answer has a clear description of the trends, a good comparison of data, or a clear outline of stages in a process.

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Getting a higher band requires you to be able to describe the data more accurately or concisely within the word limit.

Coherence and Cohesion​

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The second column is about how well you put your ideas together logically so the reader can understand what you are describing. You may have picked all the most important data, and made the best comparisons, but if you put them in your essay randomly, it will be very difficult to read.

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A good score here mostly comes from how well you plan your paragraph structure, and how you choose, state, develop and compare your ideas. These then need to link together using a mixture of linking phrases, which the rubric calls 'cohesive devices'.

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A band 5 answer is quite disorganised with poor use of cohesive devices. This typically happens because the reader is more focused on other parts of their essay.

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In a band 6 answer, the writer has clear thought about their essay's coherence, but still has made some errors.

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A band seven answer is more logical in its structure. 

Coherence and Cohesion

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The third section is lexical resource, which is a fancy way of saying vocabulary. This includes word choice, spelling and word formation.

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It’s important that you use a wide range of vocabulary and that you avoid using the most obvious or simple language. However, you need to be 100% sure your word choice is accurate. It's very common for students to use words which don't quite fit in an effort to paraphrase. You will lose more points than your gain if you do this.  

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For a higher score, band 7 or above, you need to use less common lexical items with an awareness of style, which typically means using more formal language. One example may be to use the verb to soar rather than to increase (a less common word), but we wouldn’t say ‘to soar like an eagle, as this would be inappropriate in this form of writing (an awareness of style).

Coherence and Cohesion

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The final section is grammar. You need to accurately use a range of different structures in your answer. 

 

For a band 6 you need to use ‘complex’ structures, which just means more than one verb or clause in the sentence.

 

Band 7 requires you to use a range of these patterns. For each type of question, I’ll introduce lots of options that you need to make sure to use in every answer.

 

Additionally, a higher band answer will have fewer and fewer errors. A band 6 should have very few errors with simple language and it should be easy to read. A band 7 should only have mistakes in the more unusual language.