a question about how the band system works

[allen_zhang]

Hi All,
I am just reading Cambridge IELTS Textbook 9 and I have a question about how examiners grade the writing.
For general training, T1 is a letter and T2 is an essay. I found that if someone got a well prepared topic on T1, It would be definitely possible for a candidate to write a letter which is just as perfect as a sample answer.

My qustion is : will the examiners give a 9 to a perfect letter if they found this candidate just got 6 on T2? I doubt about it because if they do so, the candidate will get a 7 on his writing.

Best Regards,
Allen

[durai]

Hi Allen,

That's a good question.

As far as know, both assessments are independent, so they never lower the mark because other task was not in same level.

so, yes if you score more than 8 in task 1, then probably yes.


lets do some calculation here : [task 1 + ( task 2 x 2) ]/3 = ?

so if get 8 in task 1, then 6 in task : [8 + (6 x 2)]/3 = 20/3= 6.67 approcimate to 6.5

bu if you get 8.5, then task with 6, will definitely get you band 7 overall.


the logic is, if you are able to write task 1 at band 9 level, then task 2 could be around 7.

Durai

[Ryan]

As far as know, both assessments are independent, so they never lower the mark because other task was not in same level.

Yes, completely separate rubrics are used to assess Task 1 and Task 2. Examiners then use a scoring sheet to award final band. Chris Green (former examiner) has a great couple of paragraphs on the subject of IELTS writing assessment here: http://ielts-yasi.englishlab.net/How_th ... Scored.htm

Here's a copy of his best guess at what the current scoring sheet looks like:
[i](Available at Chris's site: http://i ... T.JPG)[/i]