The real difference between Band 6 and Band 7 writing

As an IELTS writing examiner for many years, a good way I can explain the difference between a band 6 and band 7 essay is with two words - strain and flow. What do I mean by these two words? Well, let’s start with the first word strain. When I say it was a strain to read the essay, it means I had to stop several times to try to understand what the writer was trying to say. I had to go back and read the sentence or paragraph again to understand it. 

And what do I mean by flow? Well, when an essay flows, it is easy to read, my eye travels easily over the text and I don’t keep stopping. I can easily understand the meaning from sentence to sentence. 

Here are four specific areas where you can make your essays flow better and stop the examiner from straining to understand them. 

1. Collocations — especially prepositions after key essay words

Task 2 essays rely on a small group of high-frequency words: reason, possibility, need, discuss, argue, suggest are a few examples. The problem is that students often half-know these words — they know what they mean, but not exactly how they work.

So they write the reason of this problem instead of the reason for this problem. Or I will discuss about this issue — when discuss needs no preposition at all.

These aren't small or unimportant errors. They're the kind of thing a fluent writer does automatically, without thinking. When an examiner sees them repeatedly in an essay, it shows that the student's knowledge of these words is passive rather than active.

2. Grammatical patterns — what follows the verb matters

This is related to collocations but a little different. Every verb has a grammatical pattern — the structure that must follow it. And some of the most common Task 2 verbs have patterns that students consistently get wrong.

Suggest is the classic example. Students write I suggest you to consider this approach — but suggest cannot be followed by a to-infinitive. The correct forms are I suggest considering or I suggest that you consider. The same applies to avoid (always followed by -ing, never to), agree (agree to do something, agree that — not agree doing), and decide (decide to, not decide doing).

These verbs appear in almost every Task 2 essay. Getting their patterns wrong is very visible to an examiner — and it's entirely avoidable with focused attention on how the verb actually works.

3. Register — Task 2 is not a formal academic essay

Many students approach Task 2 as though they're writing a university dissertation. They avoid the first person completely, use complex passive sentences, or try to write long sentences that force the examiner to read several times to make sense of.

The result often sounds strange and unnatural. It is widely believed by many people that... is unnecessarily complex and awkward. Many people believe that... is cleaner, clearer, and perfectly appropriate for Task 2. I would argue that... is often better than it could be argued that — it's often more direct and effective than a passive construction that only makes the sentence longer and more difficult to understand.

Band 7 writers understand that Task 2 rewards clarity and coherence. Unnecessary passives and long, complex sentences do not always achieve this. Write clearly. Use "I" when it's the most natural choice. The examiner is not marking you down for sounding like a human being.

4. Word choice — using words you don't fully understand

The most common vocabulary mistake I see in Band 6 writing is not using too few words — it's using words the student doesn't fully control. Concur instead of agree. Reflect instead of think. Commence instead of start.

These synonyms rarely improve the writing. Often they make it worse, because the student doesn't know the exact meaning of the word, doesn't know what it collocates with, and doesn't know when it's appropriate. The examiner notices immediately — not because the word is wrong, but because it sounds unnatural. For example, a student writes: let us commence by looking at the arguments for this. Technically this is correct, you can use commence here, but it sounds unnatural.  Commence is a specific word that we normally use in very formal ceremonies (weddings, funerals, official speeches), so it sounds strange to read it in an essay like this. Let us start by looking at the arguments is much better in this situation. 

Yes, it’s good to have a wide vocabulary, but an IELTS examiner will appreciate simple, clear language better than an essay full of long, complex words that are not really used accurately. 

The honest summary

Band 7 writing is not always more impressive than Band 6 writing. It's more fluent. The examiner reads it without stopping and doesn’t have to read parts of it again to understand it. This means they can focus on what you're saying rather than how you're saying it. That's what you're aiming for.

If you'd like to look at your own writing with this kind of detail, book a free consultation and we'll work through it together.