This is the IELTS Energy Podcast, Episode 1529.
What happens if my IELTS Task 2 essay is too long?
Welcome to the IELTS Energy Podcast from All Ears English.
Downloaded more than 35 million times with examiner-trained IELTS whiz Aubrey Carter and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer.
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Are your task two essays too long?
Are you worried this could cause you to get a low score?
Find out today what kind of effect it could have and how to avoid this.
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Hello, Aubrey.
How are you today?
I'm great, Lindsay.
How are you doing?
Good.
Aubrey, I have a question for you today.
All right, let's hear it.
So what do you think happens if an IELTS Task 2 essay ends up being too long?
What happens in that scenario?
Yeah, it's really difficult to get a seven or higher if your essay is very long, for a couple of reasons.
So we're going to dive into this today.
We're answering two questions that were recently posted on our YouTube channel about this, because your score will be affected, but might not be for the reason that you think it is.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Interesting.
All right.
So this came from the two questions and I'll go ahead and read the first one.
You want to do the second one?
Perfect.
Yes.
All right.
This is from Anita Reshmi.
Anita says, I recently took the computer-based IELTS and I got a nine in listening, reading and speaking, but surprisingly only six in writing.
I usually get seven or higher in writing during practice.
For task one, I wrote 235 words and task two was around 355 words.
Could writing too much have affected my score?
Such a good question.
And first of all, I want to congratulate Anita for getting a nine in listening, reading, speaking.
These are amazing scores, but what a frustration when your writing score is lower than you need after getting these other really high scores.
And then interestingly, a student responded to her comment.
And this is what they said.
This was Sabina Rasali that said, I have the same inquiry.
I recently took the computer-based IELTS and I got an 8.5 in listening, 8 in reading and speaking. but surprisingly only a six in writing.
I wrote about 225 words for task one and 341 for task two.
I'm wondering if writing more than the word limit could negatively impact the score.
Any insights would be appreciated.
So two of our listeners had this very similar experiences and Yes.
And I'm excited to dive into the answers here today.
I'm really excited too.
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All right.
Good.
Yes.
All right.
So let's dive in here.
This definitely can affect your score, but not in the way these listeners are thinking.
They're assuming there is a word limit and it could hurt your score if you go over it, that maybe the examiners are automatically docking your score because you went over 300 words, for example, and that's not the case.
There is no official word limit.
There used to be, but there is now no maximum or minimum.
Do you remember when they changed that, Aubrey?
It's been a few years now.
It's been a while.
But if you don't have someone that has told you that, you still would assume because a lot of the older books, the older practice books, still have that information.
That's true.
That there's a certain limit.
So examiners are not counting words anymore.
How many words you write does not automatically affect your score at all.
So we want to know then what does affect the score.
Like why did these students not get the scores they wanted?
Yeah.
And what should we share here, Aubrey?
Yeah.
So the amount that you write definitely does affect your score, right?
But not because the examiner is saying, oh, 340 words, your score goes down.
Instead, it takes a lot more time to write a 350-word essay than a 250-word essay.
And this doesn't leave a lot of time to brainstorm or proofread.
So when you're writing that long of an essay, you might be skipping other steps.
And there's more to it, too.
But let's first talk about the timing.
How long do we have to write these essays, Lindsay?
We only have one hour for both essays, which is not much time at all.
It goes by in a blink.
20 minutes for task one and 40 minutes for task two.
And you're right, 20 minutes.
Think about how quickly that time can go by.
Exactly.
Right.
And so about five minutes of that time should be spent brainstorming.
For task two two to three minutes for task one.
And a few minutes should also be reserved for proofreading.
So this really doesn't leave that much time for writing.
So you don't want to write any more than you have to.
If you're writing an extra 100 words.
It's very difficult to write that much and really proofread well and have had enough time to really plan your essay well as well.
So if you're in our course, you know that you have more to do than just writing, right?
That's what it comes down to.
Exactly.
You need to be very systematic, right?
You need to go in planning on, you don't just start writing, right?
Oh, I've got lots of ideas.
I can just start writing.
Suddenly I have a 350 word essay.
If you didn't take the time to plan, to brainstorm, likely you have a lot of ideas that are maybe disorganized or aren't fully supported.
And this is how you end up with a six or a 6.5.
And it's difficult to get that seven if you're not being strategic.
Yeah.
So I see what we're saying here is that the amount you write does affect it.
If you wrote all this stuff that doesn't tie together, doesn't make any sense, doesn't work as an essay.
Yeah.
You're going to get a low score.
And pretty much anyone who writes 350 words for an essay, it's going to take 40 minutes to do that.
Right.
Regardless of your language level. especially to do it well, right?
You're using linking phrases.
You're coming up with interesting structures here.
That takes some time.
If you have 40 minutes total, what you're likely sacrificing is the time to brainstorm and proofread.
That's why it's important to be in a course that teaches you all of this.
I think we don't know what we don't know.
So we could easily go into, sorry, oh my gosh, that's so rude of me.
We could easily go into.
You know the essay thinking.
All I have to do here is write, but there's so much more.
We need to look at the vocabulary, like you said, the grammar, the spelling.
And that's why we need good training in a system and a strategy system.
Yes.
If you go in on test day thinking all I have to do is write, I write pretty well, you are very likely not going to score higher than a six.
Even native speakers have a hard time doing that.
Yes.
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Okay, Aubrey.
So what is a third thing that we need to think about here, when it comes to our score and writing a lot?
Yeah, the other reason that you might be scoring less than a seven if your essays are that long is that the more you write, the more errors you will make.
This is just a given.
Writing an extra 100 words gives you a lot more to proofread.
And what are some of the errors that you could be making more of, Lindsay?
You could be making vocabulary mistakes.
You could be repeating the same vocabulary words again and again when you had an opportunity to add different vocab.
You could be making logic mistakes.
Are your sentences actually making sense?
Is the word order correct?
Grammar, spelling, punctuation, Aubrey.
It doesn't end.
Yes, there are so many more mistakes with every extra sentence that you write.
And not only that.
Your task response score might go down if you are repeating ideas or coming up with new ideas that you're not fully supporting because you're just writing extra right.
It's much more important that you aim for, would say 150 words for task one and 250 words for task two, because that's about what it will take to accomplish these tasks.
The question that you're being asked and still have time to proofread and brainstorm.
Yeah.
And if we're taking the paper exam, which I'm not really sure, how many people are taking the paper exam anymore?
That would be a good poll question.
But if you are, you should get to know.
You should know by the time you go into exam day what that looks like.
You know in your handwriting 150 words 250, like.
How long is that?
Absolutely.
Whether you're practicing handwriting essays or typing them on the computer, you don't want to have to count words on test day.
You want to know exactly what that looks like, what that feels like an essay.
That's about the right amount.
But what's really important?
The goal isn't about word count, but about answering the question fully and supporting your ideas well, with supporting details and examples in the amount of time you have.
That's probably why they dropped the word count, right?
That people were wasting time counting.
So worried about that.
Yeah, that's the bad use of time.
And so, in our course, we go into a lot more depth in terms of what the system is like, what the steps are and exactly how to do them, what to look for, kind of mental checklist to go through, templates.
But Aubrey, can we give our listeners a very brief overview?
Yeah, so basically for task one, you know you have 20 minutes.
This is tricky too.
You need to know what that 20 minutes feels like.
You don't want to be glancing at the clock in the room all the time.
You want to know how long you have for task one.
You're going to spend about two to three minutes planning or brainstorming, which leaves you 15 minutes to write, so that you still have two to three minutes to check or proofread.
And what should the timing be for task two, Lindsay?
For task two, again, like we said, we've got 40 minutes total.
So you spend five minutes planning, 30 minutes writing, that's a solid half hour.
And then five minutes checking.
You should be a ninja at this point.
By the time you enter the test, you've done tons of practice.
You know exactly what that timing feels like.
And it's just when we've practiced something the right way over and over, we become very smooth at it.
That's where we should be by the time we go into test day.
Exactly, right?
Never write extra just to have a longer essay.
This will cause you to repeat ideas.
It will give you more to proofread.
And also if we look at these questions, these students had very specific numbers for how many words they had written right.
355 words, 235, 225.
This indicates that they counted the words for their essays.
You don't have time to do that. right?
You're more likely to get a lower score if you're focused on the number of words.
If you're counting how many words, there's no need and you don't have time.
Right.
Although I'm wondering, does the computer count your words in the computer?
There could be a word count function.
It could show your words.
So they maybe knew their words by virtue of doing it on the computer.
That's possible.
But if you're handwriting your exam, don't count the words.
You don't need to.
The examiner's not going to.
It's a lot more important that you are checking back to the task, making sure that you're answering it directly, fully supporting your ideas, and then give yourself time to proofread.
Look for those grammar errors, the errors with linking phrases, logic.
Make sure your sentences make sense.
Make any changes you need to to get the highest score you can.
Love that.
Aubrey, where should we leave our listeners today?
Yeah, writing longer essays definitely can pull down scores.
Not because the examiner is counting words or there is any kind of minimum or maximum word count, but just because your time is so limited.
So important to know this.
I mean, this again comes with knowledge and experience within the exam.
Guys, check out our course Three Keys IELTS because again, you will come out of that course having complete expertise and knowledge in exactly what the examiner is looking for.
Exactly right.
For all the strategies you need, go to allearsenglish.com slash keys.
K-E-Y-S.
All right.
See you there.
Take care, Aubrey.
Talk soon.
Thanks, Lindsay.
Bye, guys.
Bye.
Thanks for listening to IELTS Energy.
Hit subscribe now, and don't forget to find your estimated band score at allearsenglishcom.
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