Make sure your essay is readable. If your essay is easy to read, you can get better marks. The IELTS exam marks for the second writing test are dividedsintos3 categories:
First, answering the question accurately.
Second, cohesion and coherence.
Third, language appropriateness (grammar, spelling, register etc.). When you see this you understand the importance of spending time thinking about the meaning of the question(answering the question accurately) and organizing your ideas(coherence) before starting to write. Work on these aspects of writing dramatically improves the quality of an answer without even beginning to look at grammar, spelling and register. Therefore, you must keep your ideas simple as this will help with expressing and organizing what you want to say clearly.
注释:
1、register: (linguistics)range of vocabulary, grammar etc used by writers in professional contexts. (语言学)语域，即指在专业领域中作者所使用的词汇，可以理解为与题目相关领域的vocabulary。
2. cohesion: tendency to stick together.凝聚力，内聚，可以理解为围绕一个中心展开讨论，思路清晰，支持有力，不写与题目无关的东西。
3. coherence: being (of ideas, thoughts, speech, reasoning, etc) connected logically or consistently; easy to understand; clear.连贯性，一致性。可以理解为观念、思想、言论、推理合乎逻辑；前后一致；让人易懂。
考官改卷的过程一般是这样的：
快速阅卷，并在有错误的地方做记号(不修改)，除非在出现相互矛盾或复杂句型错误或英语表达水平很好者而一定要找出不足的情况下才会在卷上留迹。阅完，首先从整体上来判断是否离题，若离题，英语水平再高也只得4分；若偏题，偏一点的(这是很普遍的)那7分就基本上没戏了，明显偏的，最高得分为5分。其次，看段与段之间，每段中句与句之间的的cohesion and coherence(看上面注释)。再次，才会考虑语法、拼写和词汇。最后，考官给出分数并写二、三句话的评语(现大部分用电脑打印好的评语往上贴----省时)，所以这种评分标准就能解释为什么有的高中生词汇量非常有限却能考6分甚至7分，而有的大学毕业生过了4级却得5分甚至4分。这种评分标准也不是说词汇就不重要，而是要你学会一个，吃透一个，灵活应用一个。拼写错误属小错，是累积扣分的。简单的语法错误给考官的印象很不好，语法不好的人是很难拿6分的。由于写作是人在批改，免不了有个人因素在里头，尤其在5分和6分的评定，但7分或以上的就没有，还须重审，考官会反复检阅后才给分。
