IELTS Writing mistakes report 2026

Headline findings

1. 1

   Small grammar words go wrong in most essays

   84% of essays had articles errors, 79% subject–verb agreement errors and 69% word form errors. articles was named the single priority error in 35% of essays.

2. 2

   The most useful fix: add specific, concrete examples

   It was part of the "single biggest improvement" in 37% of essays. 65% of essays did not back a single claim with a specific example, and reasoning was rated weak or absent in 78%.

3. 3

   68% paraphrased the question by swapping synonyms

   Only 28% restructured the idea in their introduction, which is what the Lexical Resource descriptors reward.

4. 4

   Grammatical Range and Accuracy was the weakest criterion

   Mean 4.75, against 5.08 for Task Response. A gap of only 0.33 band: the essays are held back by several habits at once rather than one weak skill.

5. 5

   The median estimated band was 5.0

   98% of essays were estimated below Band 6.5. Counting only each learner's first essay gives the same picture: median 5.0 across 484 learners. These are AI estimates; see the limitations below.

6. 6

   81% slipped out of academic register

   39% were rated too informal and 43% mixed. The most flagged phrase was "a lot / lots of" (22% of essays).

Where the band estimates sit

The grammar errors in most essays

The single biggest improvement

Paraphrase and argument

No claim backed by a specific example

65%

Topic sentences unclear or inconsistent

75%

Conclusions that sum up the main points

13%

Linking words and register

What to do about it

• Check your own essay free→Get the same analysis on your Task 2 essay: band estimate per criterion, error list and your single biggest improvement.
• Fix the common grammar mistakes→With examples for each band. The most frequent error types in this report were articles, subject–verb agreement and word form.
• Plan paragraphs with specific examples→A Task 2 structure where every body paragraph carries one clear topic sentence and one concrete example.
• Practise paraphrasing and development→Short Task 2 exercises: rewrite the question, build a thesis, extend one idea.
• Read sample essays by band→See what the step from Band 6 to 7 looks like in real paragraphs.
• How Writing is scored→The four criteria and what moves each of them.

Methodology and limitations

Typing speed: across every timed Task 2 essay, 120 arrived faster than 60 words a minute; 57 of those were still in the sample when that rule was applied and were removed. 274 essays from a college lab session were left out until the college approves publication. Omitted: the platform does not store a country for most learners, so no country cut meets the 50-essay minimum per group.

• AI-estimated practice bands, not official scores

  Every band and error label here comes from IELTS.international's AI evaluation of practice essays. They are not IELTS results and are not endorsed by the British Council, IDP or Cambridge. The AI can mislabel an error or miss one.

• Few high bands

  Only 2% of essays were estimated at Band 6.5 or above. Part of that is who practises on a free checker; part may be the scorer, which our scoring study found tends to mark strong essays too low. Read the headline share below 6.5 with that in mind.

• Who is in the sample

  Self-selected learners practising on IELTS.international, 484 of them, between 13 May 2026 and 28 September 2026. Most wrote one essay (median 1). They are not a random sample of IELTS candidates, and we do not know their country or test date, so there is no country breakdown.

• Essays, not people

  Shares count essays. A learner with several essays counts several times; the first-essay-per-learner figures above check that this does not change the band picture.

• Themes are keyword-matched

  The "single biggest improvement" is free text written by the AI. We grouped it into themes by keyword rules (published in the code), and one note can match several themes, so theme shares do not add up to 100%.

How the scores are produced: how scoring works. How close the AI gets to reference bands: AI scoring accuracy study. Our publication standard: research methodology.

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