Like it has been discussed in class, Task Response is of prime importance. Understanding the question is in many cases more important than having good grammar or command over vocabulary. In the IELTS test, candidates more often, and incorrectly so, focus on impressing the examiner by putting up a display of all the fancy words they know. The results are often gory. Despite the words being fancy, the scores that these tasks produce are usually dismal.

The reason behind this is simple. These tasks eschew sense in favour of the need to impress. This is not what language is all about. The primary purpose of language, is to convey meaning, and allow for exchange of the right information. If this does not happen, it only means that language did not serve its purpose. This is something that you should remember while attempting to tackle writing task 2 in IELTS.

As a test taker, your prime directive should be to understand the question as thoroughly as possible. Once you do that, you must proceed towards giving a response that answers the question. The answer that you give must be as clear, as precise, and as easy to understand as possible. If your answer achieves these three objectives, your score in task response will be good.   

As a test taker, your prime directive should be to understand the question as thoroughly as possible. Once you do that, you must proceed towards giving a response that answers the question. The answer that you give must be as clear, as precise, and as easy to understand as possible. If your answer achieves these three objectives, your score in task response will be good.

Having done that, you need to now focus on the next phase. This is where you try and achieve good coherence and cohesion. This is a story for another day.