Hi everyone,

My name is Eva and I am an IELTS and PTE tutor with 4 years teaching experience.

Here is a quick summary of some of how to write to band 8 and above for IELTS writing task 2:

1. Structure – If you want to obtain a high band score, the first thing you need to be thinking about is how to structure your essay. Good essays must always contain a clear thesis statement, and at least 2 body paragraphs containing a strong topic sentence and multiple examples to help illustrate your argument.

2. Collocations – A common reason why people are not able to obtain a high enough band score in IELTS is because they are not using correct or varied collocations in their work. It is critical that you have a diverse understanding of different collocations, as this helps to give your writing fluency and “flow”.

3. Vocabulary – Particularly in Writing Task 2, it’s important that you are able to use a variety of synonyms if you want to obtain above a 6.5. There are many ways to expand your vocabulary, but a good place to start is making sure that you learn words that relate to commonly used themes such as health, education, crime, social issues, technology, etc…

4. Complex sentences – In order to make sure you have enough variation of grammar structures, it is important to make sure you are using complex, compound and complex-compound sentences. Bonus points if you can use an “if” clause.

Obviously, there’s plenty more you can be doing to make sure your writing is at band 8 level, but these are some great tips to get you started!