Sixty minutes, two tasks.

One hour, no break, no extra paper time. You decide how to spend the sixty minutes — and most candidates spend them wrong.

Four criteria. 25% each.

Your Writing band is the average of four separate scores. Each one is judged on its own, from its own descriptor. This matters more than it sounds: a Band 8 vocabulary cannot rescue a Band 5 Task Response. The average just drags to 6.5.

Ten minutes with your script.

An examiner has your Task 2 essay for roughly six to eight minutes. They are not hunting for beauty. They are matching what is in front of them against four descriptors they know by heart.

Five mistakes. Ranked.

In order of how much they cost. Number one costs more than the other four combined.

Four paragraphs. Always.

Not a template for the words — a frame for the thinking. Every Task 2 essay in this course sits on this shape, whatever the question type.

What Vietnamese brings with it.

These are not sloppiness. They are Vietnamese working correctly, in the wrong language. Naming them is most of the fix, because you cannot proofread for an error you don't know exists.

Ten questions.

No time limit. Answer honestly — a wrong answer here is worth more than a lucky one.

Honest self-check.

No judgement — just a record of where you are starting from.

Subject. Verb. Everything else.

An English sentence needs a subject and a finite verb. Not "usually". Always. Vietnamese does not have this requirement, and that single difference produces more errors in your writing than any other.

Four types. That's the whole list.

Grammatical Range means using more than one of these. Not exotic grammar. These four, mixed.

The sentence that isn't one.

A fragment has a capital letter and a full stop but no independent clause. It happens three ways, and once you know the three, you can find them all.

Two sentences, one coat.

The opposite failure. Two independent clauses joined with nothing, or with a comma that isn't strong enough to hold them.

Four ways to fix it

The article decision.

Vietnamese has no articles. English forces a choice in front of almost every noun. Here is the whole decision as three questions — run them in order and you will be right the large majority of the time.

Four flat sentences, one paragraph.

Watch the same content go from Band 6 to Band 7.5 in three moves. No new ideas. No harder vocabulary.

Twelve questions.

Sentence types, fragments, splices, and the six transfer errors.

Honest self-check.

One paragraph. One idea.

This one rule fixes roughly half of every Coherence problem we see. Not "one topic" — one idea. A body paragraph makes a single claim and spends its whole length supporting that claim. When the claim changes, the paragraph ends.

A topic sentence commits.

The first sentence of a body paragraph tells the reader the single claim the paragraph will prove. A weak one announces a topic. A strong one states a position on that topic.

P · E · E · L

Four moves that turn one claim into a full 100-word paragraph. This is the structure inside every body paragraph in the rest of the course.

Your linking words are costing you marks.

This surprises every candidate. You were taught that "Firstly, Secondly, Moreover, In conclusion" shows cohesion. At Band 6 it does. Above Band 6, mechanical linking is explicitly penalised — the descriptor says so.

The invisible threads.

These are the devices that hold a paragraph together without the reader noticing. Overuse the obvious connectors, underuse these, and that is exactly the Band 6 profile.

A whole paragraph, rebuilt.

Everything from this lesson, applied to one real Band 6 paragraph. Question: Some people think children should start school as early as possible. Do you agree?

Twelve questions.

One idea, topic sentences, P·E·E·L, and real cohesion.

Honest self-check.

Five questions, five shapes.

Every Task 2 question on every paper is one of five types. The type decides your essay's shape before you have a single idea. Learn to name the type in ten seconds.

Small words, absolute orders.

The topic sentence of the question is scenery. The instruction line is the contract. Three phrases do most of the damage:

The question draws a fence.

Most questions carry limiters — quiet words that shrink the territory: young people, in cities, developing countries, at primary school. Write outside the fence and your ideas stop counting.

Five minutes that write the essay.

You've named the type, honoured the instruction words, and fenced the limits. Now the plan — on the question paper, in note form, in five minutes:

The four ways scripts miss.

Four failure patterns account for nearly every Task Response penalty in Vietnamese scripts:

Decode four real questions.

For each question: name the type, then pick what a complete answer must contain. The decoder gives instant feedback — take your time, this is the whole lesson in one exercise.

12 questions.

No time limit. A wrong answer here teaches more than a lucky one — read every explanation.

Honest self-check.

No judgement — just a record of where you are starting from.

Sentence one restates. Sentence two commits.

Job one: show you understood the question, by restating it in your own words. Job two: state your position (or, for a discussion essay, your direction). That's the entire introduction.

New words, same fence.

Copying the question costs you: copied strings are subtracted from your word count and read as Band-5 behaviour. But paraphrase has one law — the meaning, including every limiter, must survive. Three safe tools:

A position that can go the distance.

Sentence two commits. The commitment has to be one you can defend for 270 words — which is why extreme positions are usually a trap and measured ones are a gift.

Finish. Don't continue.

The conclusion has one job: confirm that the position promised in the introduction was delivered. Restate the position in fresh words, gesture at your reasons, stop. Two sentences.

Operate on three introductions.

Three candidates answered the same question. Read each introduction, diagnose it, and pick the fix. The surgery table gives instant feedback.

A frame is not a formula.

Memorised templates get discounted; frames get filled. The difference: a frame fixes the jobs, and every word is chosen fresh for this question.

12 questions.

No time limit. A wrong answer here teaches more than a lucky one — read every explanation.

Honest self-check.

No judgement — just a record of where you are starting from.

One-sided or balanced — decide once.

For agree/disagree, you have two legal shapes. Both are four paragraphs. Pick by asking: can I fill two paragraphs arguing one way?

Argue a view you reject — fairly.

"Discuss both views and give your own opinion" is the shape Vietnamese candidates most often get wrong, in one specific way: the view they disagree with gets a weak, two-sentence paragraph. The examiner reads that as failing to discuss both views.

Two questions, two paragraphs.

"Why is this happening? Is it a positive or negative development?" Two direct questions. The shape is mechanical, which makes it the safest question on the paper once you see it:

The Band 7 move.

One move above all separates 6 from 7 in Task Response: showing you can hold the opposing idea, grant what is true in it, and still win. Three steps, one sentence pattern:

Two strong beats three weak.

With the shape fixed, you need exactly two body-paragraph ideas. The selection test, in order:

Build a full skeleton.

One question, four decisions: shape, intro, Body 1, Body 2. Choose well and watch a complete essay plan assemble below your choices.

12 questions.

No time limit. A wrong answer here teaches more than a lucky one — read every explanation.

Honest self-check.

No judgement — just a record of where you are starting from.

How good words go wrong.

Three ways memorised vocabulary loses marks:

Words keep company.

Collocation is which words live together. English decided these pairings centuries ago and takes them personally. The high-frequency ones for IELTS essays:

Formal without stiffness.

Register is temperature control. IELTS essays are formal — but formal means neutral and precise, not Victorian. The swaps that matter:

The grammar of careful claims.

Band 6 scripts shout: "Technology destroys communication skills." Band 7+ scripts calibrate: "Heavy technology use may weaken face-to-face skills, particularly among teenagers." The toolkit:

Replace the marked word.

Eight sentences, each with one word doing the wrong job — imprecise, mis-collocated, or wrong-temperature. Pick the precise replacement.

Learn words in families.

The last habit: vocabulary grows by topic family, with collocations attached, because IELTS topics repeat. Three families cover half of all papers:

12 questions.

No time limit. A wrong answer here teaches more than a lucky one — read every explanation.

Honest self-check.

No judgement — just a record of where you are starting from.

One sentence, half the battle.

The band descriptors are explicit: without a clear overview, Task Achievement cannot pass Band 5. The overview answers one question — standing back, what are the one or two biggest things happening? — and follows one law: no numbers.

Group, don't list.

The data-listing report — "In 2000 X was 5%. In 2005 X was 9%. In 2010 X was 15%…" — is the most common Task 1 failure. The chart has maybe twenty numbers; a Band 7 report uses six, chosen as evidence for patterns:

Rise, fall, and the space between.

Task 1 grammar is a small machine with four parts:

Charts are relationships.

Most charts compare categories, and comparison language is where accuracy slips. The reliable set:

Build a full report.

A described chart, four decisions: introduction, overview, Body 1, Body 2. Choose well and the complete 150-word report assembles below.

How the twenty break.

12 questions.

No time limit. A wrong answer here teaches more than a lucky one — read every explanation.

Honest self-check.

No judgement — just a record of where you are starting from.

Report what was done to the town.

Two maps, two dates. Your job: report the changes. The actor is unknown (who demolished the factory? nobody says), which is exactly what the passive is for:

From input to output.

A process diagram — how bricks are made, how honey is produced — is a chain of stages. The report walks the chain once, in order, in the present passive:

The clock in the question.

Maps carry dates, and the dates dictate the tense. Misreading them is the highest-frequency error in map reports:

Describe the change.

A town map in 1995 and today, described in text below. Build the report: pick the overview, then order the process of one transformation, then choose the tense-correct detail sentences.

One method for both types.

The map report error list.

12 questions.

No time limit. A wrong answer here teaches more than a lucky one — read every explanation.

Honest self-check.

No judgement — just a record of where you are starting from.

One error type per pass.

Five passes, fixed order, highest-frequency errors first. Each pass, your eye hunts one thing only — thirty seconds per pass across the whole script:

Your errors have a pattern.

Take your last three practice essays and mark every error. You will find something both embarrassing and wonderful: it is mostly the same three errors, again and again. That short list is worth more than any grammar book, because it is your grammar book.

Hunt a real paragraph.

Below is a genuine Band 6 paragraph containing eight errors — articles, endings, tense, collocation. Tap each error you find. The gym counts your catches and shows anything you missed.

If time remains: small swaps, real lifts.

Errors removed and a minute still on the clock? One upgrade pass — not rewriting, just three surgical swaps anywhere they fit:

Run the whole protocol.

A complete Band 6 short answer, thirteen errors seeded across every pass type. Run the five passes in order and catch them all — this is the exam-day rehearsal.

The whole course on one card.

Ten lessons compress to this. Read it the night before the exam and never again:

12 questions.

No time limit. A wrong answer here teaches more than a lucky one — read every explanation.

Honest self-check.

No judgement — just a record of where you are starting from.

Imagine you've just walked in.

Picture this: you've been waiting outside for twenty minutes. The examiner opens the door and invites you in. Your hands are slightly sweaty. Your mind is racing through everything you memorised.

The four pillars of your score.

Your speaking band is not a single number that the examiner pulls from thin air. It is the average of four separate scores — each one watching a different part of your English. Understand them, and you can target your practice with precision.

The short-answer trap.

By far the most common mistake Vietnamese candidates make. The examiner asks a question. You answer in three words. There is silence. The examiner moves on. Your band score quietly drops.

The A + R + D method.

This is the heart of the lesson. A simple formula that works on every Part 1 question you'll ever face. Three letters. Three sentences. Around fifteen to twenty seconds. Once it becomes automatic, your nerves stop mattering.

Topic: Work or Study.

The single most common Part 1 topic. Almost every IELTS Speaking test opens with this one. Let's see the A + R + D method applied to two real questions.

The Vietnamese signature.

Every language leaves a fingerprint on how its speakers produce English. Vietnamese has a few patterns examiners recognise instantly. The good news: most of them are quick to fix — and fixing just two or three is the difference between Band 6 and Band 7 in pronunciation.