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IELTS Writing Task 2 from scratch

(79.0% of 412 students rated this 5 after finishing)

Task 2 carries twice the weight of Task 1 and is where most candidates lose their band. Very little of that loss is grammar: it is answering a question slightly different from the one printed, or taking a position and quietly dropping it two paragraphs later.

This course works one essay through from the question to a marked answer, and then hands the marking back to you. There is no template to memorise — the descriptors do not reward one — but there is a way of reading the question that makes the shape of the answer obvious.

Course instructor

Shams Asif Chowdhury

Writing tutor

Teaches both writing tasks and marks the practice essays here.

Reads a few hundred Task 2 answers a month, which is where most of the examples in this course came from.

Nusrat Jahan

Materials writer

Writes the reading and writing material used across the mock papers.

Interested mainly in why a candidate who writes good English still loses their band on Task Response.

Tanvir Hasan

Listening and speaking coach

Runs the shadowing and transcription practice, and takes the speaking mocks.

Spends most of the day explaining that listening is not a vocabulary problem.

How the course is arranged

Six video lectures

None longer than a quarter of an hour, and each one ends with something to write.

Two exercise files

A planning sheet and a self-marking checklist. Yours to keep.

Come back to it

The lessons stay open, so the week before your test you can watch only the ones that matter.

What you'll learn

Tell the four Task 2 question types apart before you start writing

Take a position in the first paragraph and hold it to the last

Plan a whole essay in five minutes

Develop a paragraph instead of restating it

Read the band descriptors as the checklist they are

Mark your own answer the way a rater would

Course details

Who this course is for

Candidates aiming at band 6.5 or above in Writing.
Anyone who has sat the test once and lost their band on Task 2.
Teachers looking for a way to explain Task Response that is not a template.

About the course

Nine lessons across three sections, a little over an hour of video.
One essay taken all the way from the question to a marked answer.
Two handouts: a planning sheet and a self-marking checklist.
No live classes and no timetable — it is self-paced.

What you need before you start

English at roughly B1 or above. This is a course about the exam, not about English.
Something to write with. Most lessons end with a task.
The public band descriptors, which are free from ielts.org.

Content preview

Reading the question 3 lessons

Most of the lost marks happen before a word is written.

Video: What the question is actually asking 9 min Watch free

Video: The four question types, and how they differ 12 min

The planning sheet 4 min

Building the argument 3 lessons

A position, and paragraphs that develop it rather than repeat it.

Video: Taking a position and keeping it 11 min

Paragraphs that develop rather than repeat 8 min

Video: Worked example: the arts funding question 14 min

Marking your own work 3 lessons

The descriptors are a checklist. Use it on yourself.

Video: What Task Response rewards 10 min

Video: Coherence: the marks nobody plans for 9 min

A self-marking checklist 5 min

Tk 1500

Enrol, pay us directly, and we will open every lesson for your account.

What's in this course

1,248 enrolled
about 1 hour
6 videos
2 exercise files
Lifetime access

Questions before you enrol? +8801643730831