A handwritten IELTS Task 2 high band scoring essay through a magnifying glass with errors noted in red

Apr 4, 2025

How to check your writing in the last minutes of the IELTS Writing Test.

In our lessons on IELTS Writing, you'll see our final step is always to CHECK! It’s essential that you build the habit now of spending a few minutes, once you’ve finished, checking what you have written.

But what can you do on the test day when you have very little time to make any changes to your answer?

Check that your response has answered the question

Look back at the task that you’ve been given. Have you addressed all parts of the task? For example, if the Task 2 question has asked you to discuss BOTH opinions, are both sides clear in your writing? Could an additional sentence make this clearer?

Have you supported your ideas?

In Task 1 it’s essential that you have supported your description of the diagram with actual data. Make sure that the data you do use is accurate, check any figures you’ve used against the diagram before moving on to Task 2.

Your ideas and arguments in Task 2 also require support. Have you provided examples, reasons or descriptions of results in your main body paragraphs? You could simply add in one more sentence of support and make a big difference here.

Is your writing organised in a logical way?

With only a few minutes to check your writing, it’s very difficult to make any big changes to the organisation of your paragraphs. But it could be as simple as adding in a cohesive device at the start of a sentence to make the purpose of the paragraph clear. Think of what the following cohesive devices signal to the reader:

Overall,
However,
In conclusion,

These are useful, and easy to squeeze into your writing if you do feel your paragraphing needs further clarity. However, you don’t want to have to make any changes to organisation in the final moments of your test so do try to leave a space between every paragraph to make this aspect of your structure very clear to the examiner.

Check for mistakes with vocabulary

If you’ve read our blog on Improving Spelling for IELTS , you’ll know that the more you check your work, the more you know about the types of mistakes that you tend to make. For example, if you know you sometimes forget the spelling rule ‘Words ending in “-y” often change to “-ies” in the plural (library → libraries)’, check those words first.

If you do find a mistake in the on-paper test, clearly draw a line through the original word and write the correction clearly in the space above. If sitting the test on computer, it’s easier to delete and retype a word.

Check for mistakes with grammar

In Task 1, look again at your choice of tense. Have you maintained the accurate tense throughout? You can also check for use of the active or passive voice. In process diagrams as well as plans/maps, we tend to see greater use of the passive than the active. You may be able to make changes if you spot this quickly.

In Task 2, you’ll have a little more to read through but look again for any sentences that might have mixed up tenses. If you are using longer sentences, that contain two or more clauses, check that you’ve used the correct tense of each verb.

In both Task 1 and Task 2, look for simple punctuation mistakes. Does every sentence have a capital letter and full stop? Have you written any very long sentences that could be clearer if you split them into shorter sentences with the simple addition of a capital letter and a full stop? Could you make your ideas clearer by adding in a comma? Punctuation is assessed under Grammatical Range and Accuracy so correcting any punctuation errors could make a difference to your band score in this criterion.

Start now

In this blog we’ve spoken about how to make quick changes on the test day but all of these last-minute changes can be avoided if you get into the habit of checking your work every time you write. If you are constantly improving your work, learning from mistakes, then you are far more aware of the mistakes to avoid than if you never check your work at all. Don’t wait until the test day, start today and let us help you with our lesson packs on the Writing Test.