The Writing Module

GENERAL WRITING STRATEGIES

 

As a student at college or university, you will have to produce a lot of written material. Some of this may be in the form of short essays or reports. Other pieces of writing will be longer and will require considerable planning and attention to detail. It will therefore be important for you to be able to express yourself clearly, write in a variety of styles and organize your ideas carefully. You will also need to be fairly accurate in your writing, so that your message is not obscured by a lot of grammatical errors.

IELTS WRITING (ACADEMIC)

 

IELTS tests your ability to produce two quite different pieces of writing in a fairly short period of time. The test is divided into two parts and you are allowed one hour to complete both parts.

 

Writing Task 1

 

In the first part, you are given a task based on some graphic or pictorial information. You are expected to write a descriptive report of at least 150 words on the information provided,

 

Writing Task 2

 

The second task is more demanding. You are expected to produce a written argument on a given topic and to organize your answer clearly, giving some examples to support your points. You will have to write at least 250 words and, as Task 2 is longer than Task 1, you are advised to spend approximately 40 minutes on this task and 20 minutes on the first task.

 

IELTS WRITING (GENERAL TRAINING)

 

If you are planning to take the GT module, the Writing test is different. You are allowed one hour to complete two tasks, of 150 and 250 words, as in the Academic module. However, Task 1 is always a letter, while Task 2 is an essay based on a given topic.