Task 1 and Task 2 at a glance
You have 60 minutes for two tasks.
- Task 1 (at least 150 words, about 20 minutes). In Academic, you describe a chart, table, process or map. In General Training, you write a letter: formal, semi-formal or informal.
- Task 2 (at least 250 words, about 40 minutes). An essay giving your opinion, discussing two views, explaining causes and solutions, or weighing advantages and disadvantages.
Task 2 counts for more of your Writing band than Task 1, so never let Task 1 eat into its time. IELTS Learning has 104 Task 1 and Task 2 prompts across both tracks and every essay type.
The four criteria examiners use
Your Writing is marked on four equally weighted criteria:
- Task Achievement / Task Response: did you answer every part of the question, with a clear position and developed ideas?
- Coherence and Cohesion: is it logically organised, with clear paragraphs and natural linking?
- Lexical Resource: is your vocabulary accurate, varied and appropriate?
- Grammatical Range and Accuracy: do you use a mix of sentence structures, mostly without errors?
Most students focus only on vocabulary. In practice, Task Response and Coherence are often where the quickest gains are.
Habits we often see in Abu Dhabi scripts
Abu Dhabi's candidates come from many language backgrounds, and each tends to bring its own patterns. These are common, not universal, and they are all fixable.
Memorised openings and closings. Phrases like "In this modern era" or "It is a debatable topic that has been discussed for decades" add words but no meaning. Examiners recognise memorised language and it does not help your band.
Introductions that are too long. A good Task 2 introduction is two or three sentences: paraphrase the question and state your position. Many students write five or six, then run short of time for the body.
Very long sentences joined with "and". Writers whose first language is Arabic sometimes carry over a style where ideas are linked in one long flowing sentence. In English academic writing, that can read as a run-on. Splitting into two or three clear sentences usually improves both coherence and grammar scores.
Articles. Arabic, Urdu, Malayalam, Tagalog and many other languages use articles differently from English, or not at all, so "a", "an" and "the" are frequent small errors. They add up.
Workplace English that is not standard written English. Expressions common in Gulf offices, such as "kindly do the needful", "revert back", "discuss about" or "cope up with", are widely understood but count as errors in IELTS. They often appear in General Training letters.
Over-formal letters. In General Training Task 1, an informal letter to a friend should sound friendly. Some students write every letter as though it were to a ministry.
How AI feedback and teacher sessions help
Every Writing task you submit on IELTS Learning gets an AI-estimated band for each of the four criteria, with comments on what to improve. That shows you, for example, that your Lexical Resource is already 7 but Task Response is 6, so you know to work on answering the question fully rather than learning more vocabulary.
AI feedback is fast and you can use it as often as you like. It is an estimate, though, not an official score. For a human view, Book a Teacher gives you about 20 minutes one-to-one with an IELTS teacher online, from $5. Many students submit two or three essays, read the AI feedback, rewrite one, and then take that essay to a teacher session.
A weekly IELTS Writing Task 2 routine
For working students in Abu Dhabi, three Writing sessions a week is realistic:
- Session 1 (60 minutes): a full Task 1 and Task 2 under exam timing.
- Session 2 (30 minutes): read your feedback, list your three most frequent errors, and rewrite one Task 2 body paragraph.
- Session 3 (30 minutes): plan, but do not write, three Task 2 questions. Spend five minutes on each plan: position, two main ideas, an example for each.
Planning practice is underrated. Most low Task Response scores come from essays that started without a clear plan.
If you take the computer-delivered test, type your practice essays. The word counter is helpful, but your typing speed matters too.
Start writing today
Use the free sample mock to write one Task 1 and one Task 2 and see your first set of criteria scores. Try it free, then create your account for all 104 prompts. Full Access is $12 for 2 months.