Guides / Scoring and band descriptors
IELTS Band Scores Explained: What Each Number Actually Means
A band score looks like a mark out of nine. It is not. It is the average of four separate judgements, each made against its own published descriptor, then rounded by a rule that can move your result half a band in either direction.
Most candidates never see that arithmetic. They see a number, and they guess at what changed it. This page shows the calculation, so you can work out which criterion is holding your writing down instead of guessing.
The four criteria
Your writing is not marked as one piece of work. It is marked four times, against four criteria. Each one gets a whole band from 0 to 9. Half bands are not used inside a criterion.
Task Response asks whether you answered the question that was asked. Did you cover every part of it? Did you hold one clear position from the first paragraph to the last? In Task 1 this criterion is called Task Achievement, and it asks whether you selected and reported the important features of the chart or the letter prompt.
Coherence and Cohesion is organisation. Are there real paragraphs, one idea each? Do the ideas arrive in an order the reader can follow? Are the linking words doing work, or are they decoration?
Lexical Resource is vocabulary. Range matters, but precision matters more. A common word used exactly beats a rare word used approximately. Spelling and word combinations sit here too.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy covers your sentence structures and your error rate. Range means you can build more than one shape of sentence. Accuracy means the errors do not interrupt the reader. Punctuation is marked here.
How four numbers become one
Add the four criteria, divide by four, then round to the nearest half band.
The rounding rule matters more than people expect. A mean ending in .25 rounds up to the next half band. A mean ending in .75 rounds up to the next whole band. Nothing rounds down.
| Four criteria | Mean | Reported band |
|---|---|---|
| 6, 6, 6, 6 | 6.0 | 6.0 |
| 7, 6, 6, 6 | 6.25 | 6.5 |
| 7, 7, 6, 6 | 6.5 | 6.5 |
| 7, 7, 7, 6 | 6.75 | 7.0 |
| 7, 7, 7, 7 | 7.0 | 7.0 |
Read the first two rows again. One criterion moving from 6 to 7, with the other three unchanged, moved the reported band from 6.0 to 6.5. That is the whole answer to the question candidates ask most often, which is why a lot of study time produces no visible change. Work spread thinly across four criteria may lift none of them by a full band. Work concentrated on the weakest one lifts the average.
The same table read downwards shows the other half of the rule. A single weak criterion cannot be hidden by three strong ones. Bands of 8, 8, 8 and 5 average to 7.25 and report as 7.5, so a serious weakness in one area costs about a band and a half against an otherwise strong script.
Task 2 counts twice
Your Writing score is not the average of your two tasks. Task 2 contributes twice as much as Task 1.
Double weight means Task 2 counts for two thirds of the Writing result and Task 1 for one third. A candidate who scores 8.0 on Task 1 and 6.0 on Task 2 does not get 7.0. Two thirds of the score comes from the weaker task, the weighted figure is about 6.67, and it reports as 6.5.
The practical consequence is about time. Task 1 is 150 words and 20 minutes. Task 2 is 250 words, 40 minutes, and double the weight. A candidate who spends 30 minutes polishing a bar chart description has spent the extra ten minutes on the cheaper half of the paper.
Two worked examples
These two answers are in our sample library. The bands beside them are estimates produced by Bandly's scoring engine, not marks from a qualified examiner, so read them as a demonstration of the arithmetic rather than as an official result.
Example one. An essay on social media and young people returned Task Response 7, Coherence and Cohesion 6, Lexical Resource 5, Grammatical Range and Accuracy 6. The mean is 6.0 and the reported band is 6.0.
Look at where the weight sits. The ideas answered the question, which is why Task Response is the highest of the four. Vocabulary is the outlier at 5, and it is dragging the mean down by a quarter of a band on its own. For this writer, another month of essay planning would change almost nothing. Precision in word choice would change the reported band.
Example two. An essay on traffic congestion in cities returned 8, 7, 7, 7. The mean is 7.25, and because .25 rounds up, the reported band is 7.5.
This is the rounding rule paying out. The same essay under a rule that rounded down would report 7.0. Half a band is the difference between two visa categories in some countries, and it turns on one criterion out of four.
What the numbers mean in plain language
The public band descriptors are long. Here is the short version for the range most candidates sit in.
| Band | What it looks like in writing |
|---|---|
| 5 | The answer is partly relevant. Ideas repeat, organisation is thin, and errors are frequent enough to slow the reader down. |
| 6 | The question is addressed, though some parts less than others. Structure exists. Errors are common but the meaning usually survives them. |
| 7 | The position is clear and held. Paragraphs are logical. Vocabulary shows range with occasional slips. Many sentences are error free. |
| 8 | Every part of the question is covered fully and precisely. Errors are rare and minor. Word choice is skilful and sounds natural. |
Band 9 exists and is rare. It describes writing that is fully developed, fluent and accurate throughout, which is a higher standard than most first language writers meet under exam conditions.
Your overall band score
The number on your Test Report Form is the average of Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking, rounded the same way. Four skills, mean, nearest half band, .25 and .75 round up.
That rounding is worth one more minute of your attention. Scores of 6.5, 6.5, 6.0 and 6.5 average to 6.375, which reports as 6.5. Scores of 6.5, 6.5, 6.0 and 6.0 average to 6.25, which reports as 6.5 as well. Half a band in one skill sometimes changes nothing at all, and sometimes changes everything. Work out where your own numbers sit before deciding which skill to study next.
What to do today
Take an essay you have already written. Give it four separate scores using the four criteria above, one at a time, and write each number down before you look at the next. Do not score the essay as a whole, because a whole-essay impression is what the band descriptors were designed to replace.
Then find your lowest number. That single criterion is where your next half band is, and the other three can wait.
If you want a second reading of the same essay, paste it into Bandly and compare the four estimates against your own. They are estimates rather than examiner marks, but seeing the same essay broken into four numbers is what makes the weak criterion visible.
Find out what this essay would score
Paste your own answer and Bandly returns an estimated band for each of the four criteria, with the sentences that pulled the score down. Under a cent an essay, about six seconds.
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