The two tasks
You have 60 minutes for two tasks. Task 2 carries more weight, so give it about 40 minutes.
Task 1 (at least 150 words, about 20 minutes)
- Academic: describe a graph, table, chart, process or map. You report the main trends and comparisons; you do not give opinions.
- General Training: write a letter, formal, semi-formal or informal, responding to a situation such as complaining about a problem, asking for information or apologising.
Task 2 (at least 250 words, about 40 minutes) An essay giving your opinion, discussing two views, analysing causes and solutions, or weighing advantages and disadvantages. Academic and General Training essays are similar in type.
How examiners mark your writing
Each task is marked on four criteria, each worth a quarter of the score:
- Task Achievement / Task Response: did you answer every part of the question, with a clear position and well-developed ideas?
- Coherence and Cohesion: is the writing logically organised in paragraphs, with linking that sounds natural rather than mechanical?
- Lexical Resource: do you use a range of vocabulary accurately and appropriately?
- Grammatical Range and Accuracy: do you use a variety of sentence structures with few errors?
Knowing which criterion is pulling you down is the fastest way to improve, which is why IELTS Learning gives a separate estimated band for each one.
Common mistakes from candidates in Dubai
Dubai's mix of communities means the same few habits appear again and again. None of them are about intelligence; they come from the English people use at work or learned at school.
- Memorised openings. Lines such as "In this modern era..." or "This is a burning issue in today's world" are easy for examiners to spot and add nothing. A plain paraphrase of the question is better.
- Over-long introductions. Some students spend 80 words introducing an essay and run out of time for the body. Two or three sentences are enough.
- Office expressions. Phrases common in Gulf workplace emails, such as "kindly do the needful", "revert back", "prepone the meeting" or "please find the details", do not belong in an IELTS essay, and even in a GT letter they can sound unnatural to an examiner.
- Very long sentences joined with "and". Writers whose first language is Arabic sometimes build long chains of clauses, as Arabic style allows. In English, shorter sentences with clear linking score better.
- Articles and plurals. Missing or extra "a" and "the", and dropped plural "s", are common across Arabic, Urdu, Hindi, Malayalam and Tagalog speakers alike. They affect Grammatical Range and Accuracy.
- Overly formal GT letters. "Respected Sir" and "I am writing this letter to bring to your kind notice" sound dated. Match the tone the task asks for.
- Copying the question. Repeating whole lines from the prompt does not count towards your word total in the way students hope.
A Dubai-flavoured way to practise GT letters
General Training letter prompts are about everyday situations, and life in Dubai gives you plenty of material: an air-conditioning unit that broke in August, a delayed furniture delivery, asking your building management about parking, requesting leave from a manager. Practise writing these as real letters with a clear purpose, three bullet points answered in order and the right level of formality.
How AI feedback and teacher sessions help
IELTS Learning has 104 Task 1 and Task 2 prompts across both tracks, from bar charts and maps to complaint letters and every essay type.
- Write under time. Use the timer so you learn what 40 minutes of Task 2 feels like.
- Read your criterion bands. The AI-estimated band for each criterion, with comments, shows whether your problem is ideas, organisation, vocabulary or grammar.
- Rewrite one paragraph. Improving a single paragraph using the feedback teaches more than starting a new essay straight away.
- Book a teacher when you plateau. If your estimated band has not moved in a few weeks, a 20-minute 1-to-1 online session with an IELTS teacher, from $5, can pinpoint what the AI cannot fully explain, such as how well your argument actually develops.
The English Improvement section covers grammar points like articles, tenses and complex sentences, and the flashcards help you build topic vocabulary for common Task 2 themes such as technology, work, cities and health.
Getting started
You can see the format in the free sample mock test, which includes both Writing tasks. Full Access is $12 for 2 months and unlocks every prompt with feedback. Our IELTS tips blog also has worked examples of essay planning. Create your account and write your first timed Task 2 this week.