an IELTS exam. Look at the bottom of the page. You can see that there are four

marking criteria used to assess your writing. The first criterion is task

achievement for task 1 and task response for task 2. In task 1 it

assesses if you answered all the instructions given in the question and

how accurately you met the requirements of the question. For example, in task 1

the question paper says you should write at least 150 words. To get a good mark in

task achievement, you should do so. If the first task gives you three bullet points,

then you need to provide a clear response that fully covers all of them.

If the question in task 1 asks you to start a letter with "Dear sir," leaving you

with no other options to start your letter with, then you should do so.

Basically, task achievement is all about how accurately and fully you follow and

respond to the instructions given on the question paper. In task 2 this first

criterion 'task response' assesses if you answered the question, had a clear argument

developed then supported, clearly gave your own opinion when asked and

presented your ideas in a good structure. The next criterion is coherence and

cohesion. This criterion assesses how logically you present your ideas and how

smoothly your ideas flow to reach a reasonable conclusion. In order to

achieve a high score in this section, you should be capable of using many

different cohesive devices such as using keywords, linking words, referent

words and conjunctions. You also need to make sure to have paragraphs.

Each paragraph should deliver one clear main idea. This criterion is all about

how closely and tightly your ideas are linked together to present a convincing

argument in a logical way. The third criterion is lexical resource.