Most test takers struggle with achieving a band score of 7 in writing and 70 in CAEL. Various factors can be the cause of a lower band score in writing as compared to other modules in English language assessment. Factors like: Grammatical accuracy, range of vocabulary, organization of content and task achievement play a major role in your overall band score.

Here are some tips that you can follow to improve your score in writing exam:

• Task Achievement: This is what is often missed or misunderstood when it comes to writing an essay question in any English Language Assessment. Many candidates have a tendency to start writing without understanding or analysing the topic. They simply write whatever comes to their mind or whatever idea they have about the topic, without knowing and thinking of what’s been asked in the question.

Task achievement is as important as are the other elements in an English exam. Achievement of a task would mean covering all the elements like answering all the questions and staying on topic and supporting your arguments with relevant examples. For instance, if you have been asked to state different reasons for the unemployment in the developing nations, you should be able to organise your thoughts in a manner that you end up listing and outlining the various causes for it and nothing supplementary.

• Range of Sentences and Vocabulary: Merely using precise vocabulary and accurate sentences is not enough to get a high band score in writing. A candidate needs to showcase his/her ability to use a range of sentence structures and word bank. The more sophisticated vocabulary you use, more are the chances of you getting a band score above 7 or 70, whichever the case may be. Variety of sentences would include passive sentences, compound sentences, complex sentences and compound-complex sentences etc.

• Organization of Content: The way you structure your ideas and content says a lot about your writing style. There is an undecided way of writing academically and it is the way you start your argument and develop it as you go forward. There has to be a continuous flow of ideas which can be generated by using various sentence types and connecting words.

• Grammatical Accuracy: Last but not the least, is grammatical accuracy, this is something that can’t be overlooked. If you want to score good bands in writing then you have to make sure that your writing answer sheet is devoid of any grammatical errors which include the errors of subject-verb agreement, punctuation, noun-pronoun reference and wrong usage of forms of verb etc.

Lastly, do not forget to proof-read your answers.

Good Luck for your exam and contact us, if you need input on CAEL and IELTS. Please contact us at min@aolmississauga.com or call 905-273-6788 for more information.

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