IELTS Task 2 conclusions that reach band 7 (and three that don't)

A band 7 conclusion restates the position you already argued, in wording you have not already used, and adds nothing your body paragraphs have not earned. Everything else — the transition phrase, the length, whether you write "In conclusion" at all — is preference, not criteria.

What follows is six IELTS Task 2 conclusion examples written to one prompt and judged at the band 7 line: three that give an examiner what band 7 asks for, and three that hand back the exact defect the band 6 descriptor names. The introduction stays the same in all six, because a conclusion cannot be marked on its own. It is marked against the position it is supposed to be closing.

Six closings, one prompt, one unchanged introduction. The conclusion is marked against the position it is closing.

What the descriptor actually says about conclusions

The public band descriptors mention conclusions once, and they mention them as a fault. Under Task Response at band 6:

"A position is presented that is directly relevant to the prompt, although the conclusions drawn may be unclear, unjustified or repetitive."

At band 7, the same criterion reads: "The main parts of the prompt are appropriately addressed. A clear and developed position is presented." At band 8: "A clear and well-developed position is presented in response to the question/s."

Two things follow from that wording. First, no band asks for a concluding paragraph. The criterion is about the position — how clear it is, how developed it is, whether the prompt's main parts were addressed. Where you state that position is left to you. Second, the three adjectives in the band 6 line — unclear, unjustified, repetitive — are the actual marking vocabulary for conclusions. An examiner reading your last paragraph is checking whether it does one of those three things. If it does, that is band 6 evidence sitting at the end of your script — the last thing read before Task Response is decided.

Six conclusions to one prompt, scored

The prompt below was written for this article rather than taken from a past paper, so the question type is reproduced but the wording is ours:

Some people believe that governments should pay the full cost of university tuition, while others think students should pay for it themselves. Discuss both views and give your own opinion.

Every conclusion below closes this same introduction:

University funding is contested in almost every country that has expanded higher education. Those who want the state to pay treat a degree as a public asset; those who want students to pay treat it as a private one. In my view the cost should be divided by field: the state should fund places in subjects where the country has a documented shortage of graduates, and students should contribute to the cost of the rest.

Note that the position has two halves — conditional state funding, student contribution elsewhere. A conclusion supplies band 7 evidence when both halves survive it in new words.

One caveat on the scoring below. A conclusion on its own does not carry a band; a band comes from four criteria applied to a whole script. What each verdict does is name the Task Response and Coherence and Cohesion evidence that conclusion hands over, and whether it matches the band 6 or the band 7 line.

Conclusion 1

"In conclusion, university funding is contested in almost every country that has expanded higher education. Those who want the state to pay treat a degree as a public asset, and those who want students to pay treat it as a private one. In my view the cost should be divided by field."

This is the introduction with a transition phrase glued to the front. Task Response: repetitive, in the descriptor's own word — the position is present but nothing has developed since paragraph one. Lexical Resource takes a second, quieter hit, because a script that recycles its own sentences has shown its range once and then declined to show it again.

Conclusion 2

"In conclusion, there are arguments on both sides of this issue, and both governments and students clearly have a role to play. Ultimately, it depends on the circumstances of each individual country, and a balanced approach is probably the best solution."

Task Response: unclear. The two-part position has disappeared — no shortage subjects, no split, no criterion for deciding. "A balanced approach" could close an essay on any topic in any direction. Coherence and Cohesion is damaged too: the last paragraph no longer agrees with the first, so a reader tracking the argument ends up less certain of your view than they were at the start.

Conclusion 3

"In conclusion, tuition should be free in shortage subjects and paid for elsewhere. Governments that fail to act on this will find their brightest graduates emigrating within a decade, and their economies will pay the price for that decision."

The position survives, and then a claim arrives that no body paragraph argued: emigration, ten years, economic damage. Task Response: unjustified. The problem is not that the prediction is wrong, it is that it is unsupported and unsupportable in the two sentences left to you. New material in a conclusion is not penalised by some published rule — no such rule exists — but it reliably produces the "unjustified" reading, because assertion without development is exactly what that word describes.

Conclusion 4

"The disagreement is really about what a degree produces. Where the benefit is measurable and national — a shortage of nurses filled, a gap in engineering closed — the state has a defensible reason to carry the cost. Where the benefit accrues mainly to the graduate, so should the bill."

Both halves of the position are present, the wording is new, and nothing is introduced that the body did not argue. It also does what band 7's "developed" implies: it names the criterion the essay has been using — measurable national benefit against private benefit — instead of restating the outcome. Task Response evidence sits at the band 7 line. Coherence and Cohesion benefits as well, since the closing sentence answers the question the introduction opened.

Conclusion 5

"Neither camp is wrong about what it values; they are describing two different kinds of return. Funding becomes a much simpler question once that distinction is made explicit: public money follows documented public shortage, and private benefit carries its own cost."

Same result by a different route. This one restates the position by resolving the debate rather than repeating the verdict, which is a natural place for the flexibility that Lexical Resource rewards at band 7. Both halves are still legible to an examiner reading quickly.

Conclusion 6

"Public money should follow documented shortage. Everything else is a private investment, and should be paid for as one."

Two sentences. Both halves present, wording new, nothing added. Length is not a criterion, and there is no official guidance on how long a conclusion should be — this one is band 7 evidence for the same reasons as the two above it.

Conclusion	Both halves of the position?	New wording?	New claim?	TR evidence
1	Yes	No	No	Repetitive — band 6 line
2	No	Yes	No	Unclear — band 6 line
3	Yes	Yes	Yes	Unjustified — band 6 line
4	Yes	Yes	No	Clear and developed — band 7 line
5	Yes	Yes	No	Clear and developed — band 7 line
6	Yes	Yes	No	Clear and developed — band 7 line

The three failure modes

Unclear, unjustified, repetitive. The band 6 descriptor names all three, and your last paragraph lands in one of them or in none.

Unclear. The conclusion states a position that is weaker, vaguer or simply different from the one the essay argued. It usually happens when the introduction committed to something specific and the writer, running short of time, falls back on a memorised closing formula. Diagnostic: cover your introduction and read only your conclusion. If a stranger could not tell which side you were on, or on what condition, it is unclear. Fix: copy the content of your position forward, not the words.

Unjustified. The conclusion asserts something the body never supported — a prediction, a statistic, a fresh reason, a recommendation aimed at a party the essay never discussed. Diagnostic: point at the body paragraph that supports each clause in your conclusion. If you can't point, cut it. Fix: conclusions are for the claims you already paid for.

Repetitive. The conclusion reuses the introduction's sentences, or repeats the body's topic sentences in order. This is the most common of the three and the easiest to fix, because the position is already correct — only the expression has stalled. Diagnostic: mark every content word that also appears in your introduction. If most of them do, rewrite. Fix: change the level of abstraction. If the body argued in examples, conclude with the principle; if the body argued in principles, conclude with what it means in practice.

All three are visible to an examiner in about ten seconds, which is roughly how long your conclusion gets. That asymmetry — a paragraph you write last, under time pressure, read at the moment Task Response is being decided — is the reason it is worth rehearsing.

Do you even need a conclusion?

Strictly, the descriptors never require a concluding paragraph. Task Response is about whether the prompt's main parts are addressed and whether a clear, developed position is presented. In principle a script that presents its position clearly and develops it fully could stop at the end of the final body paragraph and still meet the band 7 wording.

In practice, write one. Three reasons. Your position has to be unmistakable, and stating it once in an introduction, then leaving it implicit for two hundred words, makes an examiner work to reconstruct it. Coherence and Cohesion rewards logical progression, and an essay that stops mid-argument reads as unfinished rather than economical. And the band 6 line explicitly evaluates "the conclusions drawn", which tells you that whatever conclusion your script reaches is being marked — the choice is between reaching one deliberately and leaving one to be inferred.

The honest version of the advice: a conclusion is not a rule, it is the cheapest available insurance on the criterion that costs the most.

FAQ

Does a conclusion have to start with "In conclusion"?

No. There is no required transition phrase. "In conclusion" is harmless but it is also the most predictable opening available, and it does nothing for Lexical Resource. Conclusions 4, 5 and 6 above use none.

How many words should a conclusion be?

There is no official figure — the only published length requirement for Task 2 is "at least 250 words" for the whole response. Judge your conclusion by whether both halves of your position survive in new wording, not by a word count.

Does the conclusion count toward the 250 words?

Yes. The requirement applies to the whole answer, not to the body paragraphs.

Can I put a new idea in the conclusion?

You can, and no published penalty table says what it costs, because no such table has ever been released. What you should expect is the "unjustified" reading described above: a claim with no development behind it, arriving where there is no room to develop it.

My conclusion says the same thing as my introduction. Is that repetitive?

It should say the same thing — that is the point. It becomes repetitive when it says it in the same words. Keep the position, change the expression, and if possible change the level of abstraction.

Related reading

• IELTS Task 2 introductions: five openings scored line by line — the other end of the essay, scored the same way
• Band 6 to band 7: the same essay rewritten — including the conclusion edit that moved Task Response
• IELTS Task 2 discussion essay band 7.5 sample — a position developed from opening to close
• IELTS Writing band descriptors explained — what each criterion is measuring

Official task instructions are on ielts.org.