Should You Write IELTS Task 2 First? What the Order Actually Costs

You get 60 minutes for IELTS Writing and two tasks to finish inside them. Nobody tells you which one to start with, and most advice you find is somebody's preference. The decision is better made with the band arithmetic, because the two tasks do not count equally and they do not fail in the same way.

What the order cannot change

Four facts hold whichever task you start with.

• The two tasks share one 60 minute block. There is no separate timer for each.
• Task 2 contributes twice as much as Task 1 to your Writing band. The usual time split, about 20 minutes on Task 1 and about 40 on Task 2, comes from that weighting.
• Each task is marked on four criteria. For Task 1 they are Task Achievement, Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource, and Grammatical Range and Accuracy. Task 2 uses the same four, except the first is called Task Response, which asks whether you answered the question with a clear position.
• Each task has its own word floor. Task 1 asks for at least 150 words, Task 2 for at least 250. An answer below the floor cannot cover what the task asked for, so the loss shows up first in Task Achievement or Task Response.

So the order changes nothing about the marking. What it changes is which task gets your attention while you are still fresh, and which one gets whatever minutes are left.

The arithmetic, in one table

Your Writing band is built from the two task bands with Task 2 counted twice, then rounded to the nearest half band. In plain terms, Task 1 plus two lots of Task 2, divided by three.

That formula is not symmetrical, and seeing it worked both ways is more persuasive than any advice.

Read the first two rows together. The same two numbers, swapped, are half a band apart. A strong Task 1 cannot carry a weak Task 2, because the weak score is counted twice. A weak Task 1 is much easier to survive.

Now read the fifth row. Even a Task 1 collapse to 4.0, which is what an unfinished 90 word description looks like, still leaves 6.0 when Task 2 is strong. Losing control of Task 2 is the more expensive mistake, and that is the whole case for writing it first.

Why Task 2 first is the stronger default

Three reasons, in order of how much they matter.

1. The expensive task gets your best thinking. Task 2 needs a position, two developed body paragraphs, and examples. That is thinking work, and it is the first thing to degrade when you are 45 minutes into an exam.
2. A short Task 2 is harder to repair. The floor is 250 words, not 150. If you have eight minutes left and 120 words written, you cannot reach the floor with anything coherent. Eight minutes is usually enough to produce a thin but complete Task 1.
3. Task 1 compresses more safely. A chart description has a fixed shape: an opening line that says what the chart shows, an overview of the main trends or differences, then the figures that support it. You can write that shape quickly because you are not inventing an argument. A rushed Task 1 is a worse Task 1, but it is still an answer to the question.

The one real risk, and how to remove it

Writing Task 2 first has a single failure mode: you enjoy it, you overrun, and Task 1 gets 11 minutes. The order only helps if the minutes are protected.

Fix it with a hard stop rather than good intentions. Decide before the exam that you leave Task 2 at the 40 minute mark in whatever state it is in. If your conclusion is half written, finish that sentence and move. An essay with a one sentence conclusion and a complete Task 1 scores better than a polished essay and 90 words of chart description.

The same rule in reverse is why Task 1 first fails for many candidates. Twenty minutes on Task 1 becomes 28, because there is always one more comparison to add, and the eight stolen minutes come out of the task that counts double.

What a rushed Task 1 actually loses

Here is the difference, marked. The task is a line graph of coffee and tea consumption in one country across 20 years.

Unfinished, 94 words:

The graph shows the consumption of coffee and tea in one country. In the first year, tea was consumed by 150 grams per person and coffee was 50 grams. Tea went down and coffee went up. In the last year, coffee was 140 grams and tea was 80 grams. There were also some changes in the middle years. The consumption of coffee increased a lot during this period and tea decreased.

Task Achievement is the criterion that falls first here. The answer is under the word floor, there is no clear overview of the whole period, and the middle of the graph is mentioned without a single figure. Coherence and Cohesion also drops, because the sentences are in the order the writer noticed them rather than in a progression.

Completed, 162 words, same information plus the overview and the grouping:

The line graph compares the amount of coffee and tea consumed per person in one country over a period of 20 years. Overall, the two drinks moved in opposite directions, and coffee had replaced tea as the more popular drink by the end of the period. In the first year, tea consumption stood at 150 grams per person, three times the figure for coffee at 50 grams. Tea then fell steadily for the next decade, reaching 100 grams by the midpoint, while coffee rose at a similar rate to 95 grams. The two lines crossed shortly after the midpoint, at roughly 90 grams each. In the final decade the gap widened again, with coffee climbing to 140 grams and tea settling at 80 grams. The steepest change in either line occurred in the second half of the period, when coffee consumption rose by almost 50 grams in five years.

The second version is not better English. The vocabulary and the grammar are at the same level. It scores higher because it covers the task: an overview, grouped movements, supporting figures, and the crossover point named. That is 20 minutes of work, and the first version is what 11 minutes produces.

When Task 1 first is the right call

Two cases.

If Task 1 is your weaker task and you know you freeze on charts, starting there removes the anxiety that would otherwise sit behind your essay. Fear costs more minutes than it saves.

If you are taking General Training, where Task 1 is a letter, the opening decision is about tone rather than data. Choosing formal, semi formal or informal is quick when you are fresh and surprisingly hard when you are rushed, and the wrong choice runs through every line of the letter.

In both cases, keep the hard stop. Task 1 ends at 20 minutes.

Practise the order, not just the tasks

This week, do two full 60 minute papers, one in each order, and write down three things each time: the minute you finished the first task, the word count of the second, and which task you felt you rushed. Most candidates find their answer in those six numbers rather than in any advice.

Then mark both papers against the four criteria, one criterion at a time, and look for the pattern instead of the total. If you want a second opinion on the essays you write this week, you can paste one into Bandly for an estimated band and criterion by criterion feedback on the exact sentences holding it back.