Why IELTS Writing Feels Harder Than the Other Skills

Many IELTS candidates feel confident in reading and listening, but struggle significantly more with writing. This does not mean that writing is impossible — it means that writing is scored differently.

Unlike reading and listening, IELTS Writing is assessed using four official criteria: Task Response, Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource, and Grammatical Range and Accuracy. A weakness in just one of these areas can reduce your overall band score, even if your English level is otherwise strong.

Another reason writing feels harder is that errors are permanent. In listening, you can miss one answer and still score well overall. In writing, repeating the same grammar or structure mistakes lowers your score every time they appear.

The key to improvement is understanding what examiners actually penalise. Writing more essays without clear feedback often leads to slow or no progress. However, when you know why your writing scores Band 6 or 6.5, you can make focused changes that lead to Band 7 and above.

If you want to see how your own essay is evaluated using official IELTS criteria, you can try the writing evaluator on this page and review detailed examiner-style feedback.