IELTS band descriptors for Writing and Speaking
Four criteria, each worth a quarter of your section band. Here is what each one measures, and what 527 graded writing tasks and 338 speaking tests on this site say about which one actually holds candidates back.
What the band descriptors are
The band descriptors are the public scoring rubrics the IELTS partners publish for Writing and Speaking, the two sections a human examiner marks. Each rubric names four criteria and describes what a performance looks like at every band from 0 to 9. The examiner awards a band on each criterion, and the average of the four becomes your section band, so every criterion is worth 25% of that score.
Listening and Reading have no descriptors. They are marked right or wrong against an answer key and converted to a band with a raw-score table, which is why you can check those yourself and cannot check Writing or Speaking the same way.
The descriptor wording is the IELTS partners’ copyright, so this page describes each criterion in its own words and links the official public versions rather than reprinting them.
The four Writing criteria
Task Achievement / Task Response
Whether you did what the question asked. In Task 2 that means covering every part of the prompt, holding a clear position and supporting it. In Task 1 it means reporting the data accurately and giving an overview of the main trend rather than listing numbers.
Coherence and Cohesion
Whether a reader can follow you. Logical paragraphing, one central idea per paragraph, and linking that guides the reader instead of decorating the page. Mechanically inserting connectives is scored as a weakness, not a strength.
Lexical Resource
Range and precision of vocabulary, including collocation, word formation and spelling. Precision matters more than rarity: a common word used exactly outscores an unusual one used loosely.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The variety of sentence structures you control and how far errors interfere with meaning. Punctuation is assessed here too. Range and accuracy are weighed together, so a wide range delivered inaccurately does not lift the band on its own.
In the Writing section, Task 2 counts twice as much as Task 1, so the same weakness costs you more in the essay than in the report or letter.
The four Speaking criteria
Fluency and Coherence
Whether you can speak at length without unnatural pausing, repetition or self-correction, and whether your ideas connect. Hesitating to search for content is treated differently from hesitating to search for language.
Lexical Resource
Range and precision, and the ability to paraphrase when the exact word will not come. Idiomatic language counts only when it lands naturally; forced idioms are marked down.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The variety of structures you produce under time pressure and how often errors obscure meaning. Spoken grammar is judged more leniently than written grammar, but it is still the criterion that most often holds the band down.
Pronunciation
How easily a listener understands you: individual sounds, word and sentence stress, rhythm and intonation. Accent is not penalised. Being hard to follow is.
What candidates actually score on each criterion
Reading the rubric tells you what is being measured. It does not tell you where people lose the marks. These are the criterion-level scores from 527 graded writing tasks written by 281 candidates and 338 speaking tests taken on this site between 1 June and 18 August 2026.
Writing
| Criterion | Mean band | Most common band | Single weakest of the four |
|---|---|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 5.42 | 6.0 (33.8% of tasks) | 1.7% of tasks |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.17 | 5.5 (24.3%) | 0.2% of tasks |
| Lexical Resource | 4.95 | 5.0 and 5.5 (24% each) | 10.2% of tasks |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 4.93 | 5.0 (26.0%) | 16.3% of tasks |
The spread is about half a band, and it runs in one direction. Task Achievement is the strongest criterion at 5.42 and Grammatical Range and Accuracy the weakest at 4.93. Candidates are answering the question. What they cannot do is deliver the answer in accurate, varied English. Task Achievement peaks at band 6, while Grammar peaks a full band lower at 5.
Speaking
| Criterion | Mean band | Most common band | Single weakest of the four |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fluency and Coherence | 4.96 | 5.0 | never |
| Lexical Resource | 4.79 | 5.0 | never |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 4.53 | 4.5 | 50.9% of candidates |
| Pronunciation | 5.40 | 5.5 | never |
The finding that surprises people
Most candidates believe their accent is what holds their Speaking band down. Our data says the opposite. Pronunciation is the strongest of the four criteria at 5.40, and Grammar is the weakest at 4.53 , a gap of nearly a full band. Grammar was the single weakest criterion for 50.9% of candidates, and Fluency, Vocabulary and Pronunciation were the single weakest for none of them. If you are preparing for Speaking and spending your time on accent reduction, you are working on your best criterion.
How these numbers were produced
- Every ieltsmocks submission scored between 1 June and 18 August 2026 that carried all four criterion bands. Nothing was trimmed: very low and zero scores are included, because excluding them once inflated published averages elsewhere by up to a full band.
- Writing is counted per task rather than per candidate, because the descriptors are applied to each task. 281 candidates produced 527 graded tasks.
- “Single weakest of the four” counts only the cases where one criterion was strictly below the other three. Ties are common and are excluded from that column, so the percentages do not sum to 100: 71.5% of writing tasks and 49.1% of speaking tests had two or more criteria tied at the bottom.
- These are practice attempts scored by our AI examiner against the public descriptors, not official IELTS results. They describe how people perform when they sit a full mock, which is what makes them useful for deciding what to work on, and they are not a prediction of an official band.
How four criteria become one band
The four criterion bands are averaged, with Task 2 weighted double in Writing. The result is reported in whole or half bands. Because the criteria carry equal weight, one weak criterion is expensive: a candidate at 6, 6, 6 and 4 averages 5.5, so a single soft area costs half a band even when the other three are solid. That is the arithmetic reason the Grammar gap above matters more than it looks.
Your overall band is then the average of the four section scores, rounded to the nearest half band. An average ending in .25 rounds up to the next half band and one ending in .75 rounds up to the next whole band, so a 6.75 average is reported as band 7. Work it out for your own scores.
Frequently asked questions
What are the IELTS band descriptors?
They are the public scoring rubrics the IELTS partners publish for Writing and Speaking. Each one lists four criteria and describes what performance looks like at every band from 0 to 9. An examiner awards a band for each of the four criteria, and the average of those four becomes your section band. Listening and Reading have no descriptors because they are marked right or wrong against an answer key and converted with a raw-score table.
Are the official band descriptors free to download?
Yes. The IELTS partners publish a public version of both the Writing and the Speaking descriptors as free PDFs, linked on this page. The public version is what candidates and teachers are meant to use. Examiners work from a more detailed internal version that is not released, which is why two people can read the public wording and still disagree about a borderline script.
Which criterion is hardest to score well on?
Across 527 graded writing tasks on IELTS Mocks, Grammatical Range and Accuracy has the lowest mean at 4.93, just under Lexical Resource at 4.95, while Task Achievement is highest at 5.42. In Speaking the gap is wider: across 338 tests, Grammar averages 4.53 against Pronunciation at 5.40, and Grammar is the single weakest of the four criteria for 50.9% of candidates. Language control, not ideas and not accent, is what caps most people.
Do all four criteria carry equal weight?
Yes. Each of the four criteria in Writing and in Speaking counts for 25% of that section band. That is why one weak criterion is expensive: a candidate scoring 6, 6, 6 and 4 averages 5.5, so a single weak area pulls the whole section down by half a band even when the other three are solid.
How do the four criteria become one band score?
The four criterion bands are averaged. In Writing, Task 2 carries twice the weight of Task 1 before that average is taken. The section band is then reported in whole or half bands, and the overall band is the average of the four section scores rounded to the nearest half: an average ending in .25 rounds up to the next half band, and one ending in .75 rounds up to the next whole band.
Can I be given a half band on a single criterion?
Yes. Examiners can award half bands on individual criteria in both Writing and Speaking, which is why a reported section band of 6.5 is common even though the descriptors themselves are written at whole bands. The whole-band wording describes the anchor points, and a performance sitting between two anchors is scored between them.
See your own four criterion bands
Sit a full mock and get a band on each criterion with the reasoning behind it, so you know which of the four is costing you the most.
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