IELTS writing band score checkers: what they can and cannot tell you

An IELTS writing band score checker can estimate a band for each of the four criteria your essay is marked on, and point at the sentences behind each estimate. It cannot predict the Writing band you will get on test day — and everything worth knowing about choosing and using one follows from the difference between those two things.

Below: what a checker can judge from the public band descriptors, the three things no checker can tell you, three questions to ask of any checker (this one included), and a way to use the result that does not depend on trusting the number.

Four criterion estimates, not a sealed result.

What an IELTS writing band score checker actually estimates

A checker reads one essay and compares it with the public Writing band descriptors. Those descriptors set out four criteria — Task Response (Task Achievement in Task 1), Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource, and Grammatical Range and Accuracy — at every band from 0 to 9. Each criterion is awarded a whole band, and the four are averaged into a band for the task. So the honest output of a checker is four estimates and their average, for one script, written to one prompt.

A test-day prediction is a different claim. Your reported Writing band combines two tasks, with Task 2 counting double — (Task 1 + Task 2 × 2) ÷ 3 — both written in one sitting, under time, on prompts you have not seen, and marked by a trained examiner. A checker sees none of that. It sees the single essay you chose to paste, often written without a clock, sometimes revised twice. The distance between that essay and your test-day script is not something a checker can measure, however well it reads the essay in front of it.

The difference matters most when the output is one number. A single "6.5" invites you to read it as a forecast. Four criterion estimates invite a different question — which criterion is lowest, and why — and that is a question the essay itself can answer. The arithmetic behind the reported band is in how your IELTS writing band is calculated.

What a checker can judge from the public descriptors

Most of what decides a band is on the page, and what is on the page can be checked. Three things in particular.

Which criterion is lowest. The 6/7 line is drawn separately in each criterion, and each has wording you can hold a script against. In Task Response, band 6 says the main parts of the prompt "are addressed (though some may be more fully covered than others)", while band 7 says they "are appropriately addressed" and that "a clear and developed position is presented". In Grammatical Range and Accuracy, band 6 says "a mix of simple and complex sentence forms is used but flexibility is limited"; band 7 says "a variety of complex structures is used with some flexibility and accuracy" and that "error-free sentences are frequent". A checker that marks each criterion against its own wording can tell you that your grammar reads as a 7 and your Task Response as a 6. That is the most useful single fact about an essay, because the lowest criterion is where the next hour of practice should go.

Where the errors sit. Accuracy is countable. Whether a sentence contains an error, whether that error sits in a complex structure or a simple one, whether a collocation is standard — these are sentence-level judgements, and each one can be attached to a specific sentence. Position matters as much as number. The band 6 grammar descriptor describes exactly the pattern a sentence-by-sentence check exposes: "Examples of more complex structures are not marked by the same level of accuracy as in simple structures."

Whether the task is covered. A prompt can be broken into the parts it asks for, and each part matched to the paragraph that answers it — or to nothing. A two-part question answered fully on one side and in a clause on the other is visible without examiner training, and it is the gap between the band 6 wording and the band 5 wording: "The main parts of the prompt are incompletely addressed." In Task 1 the same check applies to the key features and the overview.

All three rest on public wording, which means you can check the checker: every estimate should point back to a line in the descriptors and a sentence in your essay. That is the job the Bandly checker further down this page is built for — four criterion estimates, each tied to the sentences in the essay you paste.

What no checker can tell you

Near a boundary, placing the script is a judgement.

Three things sit outside any essay a checker is shown.

Your actual test score. Test-day conditions change the script, not the marking. Forty minutes for Task 2, an unfamiliar prompt, no chance to rewrite a paragraph the next morning: an essay that estimates at 7 when written at a desk over an evening is evidence about your ceiling, not about the script you will produce under time. The reported band also includes Task 1, which you may not have checked at all. IELTS states that "The assessment of Task 2 carries more weight in marking than Task 1" — more weight, not all of it.

The examiner's best-fit judgement. The descriptors are not a checklist with a pass mark. For each criterion, an examiner decides which band's description best fits the script as a whole, and real scripts rarely match one band cleanly: two developed paragraphs next to a thin one, precise vocabulary next to a misfire. Where the evidence is split, placing the script is a judgement, and it is the judgement examiners are trained and certified to make. A checker can model the wording; it cannot claim to reproduce that judgement on a script sitting on the boundary. An essay that estimates at a clear 7 in every criterion is a safer position than one that estimates at 7 with half its evidence pointing to 6, and a useful checker should show you which of the two you have.

Variation between markers. Two trained readers can place the same boundary script in adjacent bands on a criterion, which is part of why IELTS offers candidates a remark. No checker can tell you which way a particular examiner would have leaned. And a claim that a checker "matches examiners" means little unless you know which scripts it was measured on and against whose marks, so treat any headline accuracy percentage, from anyone, as a number you cannot inspect.

There is also a gap on the official side. Your Test Report Form gives a single Writing band, with no line for either task and none for the four criteria. A checker cannot be calibrated against your own past result criterion by criterion, and neither can you — which is exactly why so many candidates go looking for a criterion-level view after the result arrives.

Three things to look for in an IELTS writing band score checker

The useful question is not which checker gives the highest number, or the most confident one. It is whether you can see how the number was reached. Three checks, and they apply to this site's checker as much as to any other.

1. Does it break the band into the four criteria? An overall band on its own tells you roughly where you are and nothing about what to do next. A 6.5 can be two criteria at 6 and two at 7, and which two is the whole story: a 6 in Task Response and a 6 in Lexical Resource call for completely different practice. A checker that reports only one number leaves you where the Test Report Form does.

2. Does it point at sentences? A criterion estimate without evidence is an opinion. "Lexical Resource: 6" gives you nothing to act on; "Lexical Resource: 6 — pose an impact and work-life equilibrium are not standard collocations" gives you two phrases to look up in a learner's dictionary. You should be able to go to the sentence, check it, and decide whether you agree. Feedback you cannot test against your own page is feedback you have to take on trust.

3. Does it reason from the public descriptors? The public band descriptors are the published statement of the criteria. A checker that explains a band in their terms — a developed position, reference and substitution, flexibility and precision, frequent error-free sentences — is making a claim you can verify against the source. One that explains it in its own vocabulary — "advanced words", "strong structure", "natural flow" — is marking against criteria you cannot see. The full band-by-band wording is set out in IELTS Writing band descriptors explained.

One warning sign to add to the three: a precise-looking score presented as if it were a result. Every automated band, ours included, is an estimate made against public wording. Only a certified examiner produces an official band.

Try it on your own essay

Use a checker the way you would use a mock examiner: on an essay written under time, to a prompt you have not practised, and without tidying it first. A polished essay gets you an estimate of your best draft, which is not the script you will write in the test.

Then read the result in this order:

1. Find the lowest criterion, not the average. The average tells you where you are; the lowest criterion tells you what to work on.
2. Open the sentences cited for it. Check each one against the descriptor line it is tied to. If you cannot see the problem, look the phrase or structure up before deciding the estimate is wrong.
3. Rewrite one paragraph for that criterion only, then check the paragraph again. If the estimate for that criterion moves and the others hold, you have found the lever.

If the same criterion comes back lowest on two different essays, it is a habit rather than a bad day, and how to get band 7 in IELTS Writing sets out what has to be true in each criterion to move it. If the checker and your own reading of the essay disagree, how to check whether your essay is band 7 before the test gives a four-pass self-check that settles the question on the page rather than by preference. And if your essay looks like a 7 to you but keeps estimating at 6, my essay looks band 7 but scored 6 shows where that gap usually comes from.

FAQ

Are IELTS writing band score checkers accurate?

They can be reliable on what is visible in the essay — which criterion is weakest, where the errors are, whether each part of the prompt is answered — when every estimate is tied to a sentence and to the public descriptors. They cannot predict your test-day score, and no single accuracy percentage tells you how a checker performs on your kind of essay.

Can a band score checker predict my real IELTS writing score?

No. A checker estimates the essay you give it. Your reported Writing band comes from two tasks written under time on unseen prompts, with Task 2 counting double, placed by an examiner's best-fit judgement. Use the estimate to find your weakest criterion, not as a forecast.

Why does a checker give a different band from my teacher?

Usually because the essay sits near a boundary and the two readers weighed split evidence differently, or because one of them marked the essay as a whole rather than criterion by criterion. Compare the four criteria rather than the totals, and look at the sentences each points to.

What should a good IELTS writing checker show?

Three things: a separate estimate for each of the four criteria, the specific sentences behind each estimate, and reasoning in the language of the public band descriptors. If any of the three is missing, you cannot check the result against your own essay.

Does the official IELTS result show a score for each writing criterion?

No. The Test Report Form gives one band for Writing, with no separate figures for Task 1, Task 2 or the four criteria. A criterion-level view has to come from marking against the descriptors yourself, a teacher who marks by criterion, or a checker that scores each criterion.

Are the band estimates on this site official?

No. They are estimates made against the public band descriptors. Only a certified examiner produces an official band.

Related reading

• IELTS Writing band descriptors explained — the full wording for all four criteria
• How to get band 7 in IELTS Writing — what has to be true in the essay for each criterion
• My essay looks band 7 but scored 6 — one essay self-scored and examiner-scored, a full band apart
• How your IELTS writing band is calculated — how the criteria and the two tasks combine into one number

All descriptor wording quoted here is from the public Writing band descriptors updated in May 2023, published by IELTS and the British Council. The statement on Task 2 weighting is from IELTS writing test resources.