Most of the Task 2 scripts I mark at band 6 do not fail because the ideas are wrong. They fail because every idea in them is a sentence long.
The candidate states something true, agrees with themselves in the next sentence, adds a linking word, and starts a new idea. Four paragraphs, eight ideas, nothing finished. That essay can be grammatically clean, have decent vocabulary, and still sit at 6 — and the writer has no way of knowing why, because nothing in it looks like a mistake.
What the band descriptors actually say
This is not a matter of taste. IELTS publishes the public band descriptors for Task 2, and the difference between 6 and 7 for Task Response is written down.
Read the two side by side and the whole difference is in two words: extended and supported. Not more ideas. Not harder words. One idea, taken further, and then backed with something.
That is also why writing more does not help. ielts.org says you "must write a minimum of 250 words" and that you "should spend no more than 40 minutes on this task". Beyond the minimum, length is not a criterion anywhere in the four bands you are marked on — Task Response, Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy. An extra hundred words spread across two new undeveloped ideas moves nothing, and gives Grammatical Range and Accuracy more to find.
Point, Explain, Example
The video above is sixty seconds of this idea; here it is with the marking behind it.
For every main idea you raise, write three things in order:
- Point. The claim, in one sentence. "Online learning is convenient."
- Explain. Why it is true. Not a restatement — a mechanism. "Learners can study at a time that suits their own schedule, rather than one fixed by a timetable."
- Example. One concrete case where that mechanism operates. "A full-time employee can watch a recorded lecture at ten at night, after work, instead of leaving the office early to reach a campus."
It is not an official structure and no examiner is ticking a box marked PEE. It is a habit that produces what the descriptor asks for. The explanation is what extends the idea; the example is what supports it.
Two cautions from marking, because this technique also has a failure mode of its own.
The first is the invented statistic. "Research shows that 78% of students prefer online classes" supports nothing: nobody is checking it, so it earns no credit for accuracy, and it usually reads as invented, which does no good either. Nothing in the criteria asks for data. A specific situation is stronger than a fabricated number.
The second is the example that repeats the point in different words. If your example could be deleted and the paragraph would lose nothing, it was a restatement wearing an example's clothes.
The same idea, twice
Here is a paragraph of the kind I see at band 6, on a familiar prompt about whether governments should fund public transport rather than roads.
Four sentences, and the idea never leaves the first one. "Better for the environment" is asserted, then repeated as "pollution is a big problem", which is a different claim doing no work for the first. "Many people use it" is a new idea, introduced and abandoned. The paragraph is held together by Firstly, Moreover and Therefore — three labels for an order that is not an argument.
Now the same idea, developed.
Same claim. One idea. The second sentence explains the mechanism — why buses beat roads — and the third supports it with a case the reader can picture. No linking words were needed, because the relationships are carried by the sentences themselves: "so" for consequence, "is instructive here" for the example.
That paragraph would not automatically be a band 7 essay; the other three criteria still have to hold up, and one good paragraph does not carry an essay. But it is what "extended and supported" looks like in practice.
Why your linking words are working against you
The Coherence and Cohesion descriptor at band 6 contains the sentence that explains half the essays I read: cohesive devices "may be faulty or mechanical due to misuse, overuse or omission".
Mechanical is exact. Firstly, Secondly, Moreover, In addition, Furthermore — these announce the order of your points, and order is not a relationship. The reader already knows the second paragraph comes second.
What the band above asks for is that the reader can see how two ideas relate. There are only a handful of relationships, and English has ordinary words for all of them:
| The relationship | What it sounds like in a sentence |
|---|---|
| Cause | "…, so employers no longer need to provide desk space." |
| Contrast | "This works in cities. In rural districts, where the bus runs twice a day, it does not." |
| Condition | "…, but only when the service is frequent enough to be worth choosing." |
| Example | "Dhaka's metro line is instructive here." |
| Consequence over time | "The effect compounds: each year fewer households buy a first car." |
Notice that none of those are decoration. Each one is a claim about how one idea sits against another, and that is precisely what cohesion is being marked on.
If you want the four criteria laid out in full, with two annotated scripts side by side, that is a separate piece: IELTS Writing band 6 vs band 7, criterion by criterion. And if your essays are losing marks on shape rather than development — no clear position, or a conclusion that introduces something new — start with the Task 2 structure that works for every question type.
How to practise this without a teacher beside you
Development is the one thing you can drill alone, because you can see it in your own writing once you know the shape.
- Take one of your old essays. Underline the first sentence of each body paragraph — those are your points.
- For each one, ask: where is the mechanism? If the next sentence repeats the point in other words, you have found the gap that the band 6 descriptor is describing.
- Rewrite one paragraph only. Point, explanation, example. Three to five sentences. Do not touch the rest of the essay.
- Then write a fresh one under the clock. Forty minutes, no notes, a prompt you have not seen. The habit only counts if it survives the exam conditions.
Our Cambridge papers include the Writing tasks, and they are free. Submit a Task 2 and an instructor marks it on all four criteria and writes a line on each, so you find out whether the idea was extended or only stated. Your first AI Writing evaluation and your first AI Speaking evaluation are free too, and they come back in minutes when you want a faster second opinion. We are not affiliated with Cambridge, IDP or the British Council.
The descriptor wording above is quoted from the public IELTS Writing Task 2 band descriptors (updated May 2023); the word count and timing are from ielts.org. Checked on 24 September 2026.
