IELTS Lexical Resource Band 7 Tips: Stuck at 6.5?

The notes below paraphrase the public IELTS Writing band descriptors published on ielts.org. The file itself is marked as updated in May 2023. Lexical Resource uses the same vocabulary standard for Academic and General Training, and for Task 1 and Task 2. This page does not reproduce that scale, and it does not award a band. A script has to fit the positive features of a band as a whole.

The four public criteria are separate. A missing half of the prompt is Task Response, explained in the Task Response band 6 to 7 guide. A chart figure that does not match the graphic is Task Achievement. Grammar that breaks the sentence sits under Grammatical Range and Accuracy. Lexical Resource is the words, the pairs they form, and the spelling and word formation around them. The wider map of all four criteria is the band descriptors guide.

What Lexical Resource is actually marking

At the step from 6 to 7, the public description turns on three comparisons. Band 6 has an adequate range for the task. Band 7 has a sufficient range to allow some flexibility and precision: the wording can name a narrower thing when the point needs it. Band 6 attempts less common vocabulary, with some inaccuracy. Band 7 uses less common lexical items with some awareness of style and collocation. A rare word that does not fit is still the inaccurate attempt, not the Band 7 move.

Band 6 also allows some errors in spelling and word formation, as long as they do not impede communication. Band 7 allows occasional errors in word choice, spelling, and/or word formation. A readable mistake does not freeze a script at 6, and one tidy paragraph of rare words does not reach 7. The band is the set of positive features, read together.

What Band 6 already includes

Band 6 is a real vocabulary performance. The range covers the task. The writer reaches past the most basic set, and some of those reaches miss. Spelling and word formation slip in places, and a reader can still recover the meaning.

The limit sits inside that adequate range. The same safe nouns do several jobs: problem, people, thing, government, good, bad, increase. Each sentence is clear. The next sentence does not become more exact, because the word that should have changed stayed the same. The descriptor does not publish a count of repeated words. Repetition matters when one noun is standing in for a difference you never wrote.

What has to change for Band 7

Band 7 asks for a sufficient range that allows some flexibility and precision: a tighter word when the general one blurs the point, so the reader can see which thing you meant. Less common items belong when they show some awareness of style and collocation. Style means the wording still belongs in an essay, a letter, or a chart report.

Occasional errors remain available at Band 7. The step is not a perfect spelling test, and it is not a rule that every common word must go.

If the overall writing score is sitting near 6.5 and you are not yet sure the limit is vocabulary, start with finding the score blocker. The Band 7 road map covers all four criteria. This article stays on Lexical Resource.

Repeated words that keep the range adequate

Before. Many cities have a problem with traffic, and this problem makes the air problem worse. The government should solve this problem.

“Problem” stands in for the queues, the exhaust, and the policy. That is an adequate range. It does not yet separate those things.

After. Many cities face long queues at peak hours, and those queues leave exhaust near homes. A charge on the busiest roads is one response. It does not remove every journey.

A second pattern looks like paraphrasing and still adds no range.

Before. The government should help poor people, assist low-income citizens, and support individuals with little money.

Three labels point at one group. “Low-income citizens” does not add a new point.

After. A housing benefit should reach tenants who spend more than a third of their pay on rent, rather than every household that feels prices are high.

Imprecise word choice, including the rare word

Band 6 attempts less common vocabulary with some inaccuracy. Band 7 may still show an occasional error in word choice. The difference is whether the less common item is inaccurate, or used with some awareness of what it actually means.

Before. Technology has ameliorated the negative externalities of urban existence, so city life is now optimised.

Those words are less common, and in this sentence they are inaccurate: the reader cannot tell what improved, for whom, or compared with what. That is the inaccurate attempt Band 6 already describes.

After. Longer shop hours mean a nurse finishing a night shift can buy food without waiting until morning. That is a gain for shift workers. It is not a claim about every part of city life.

Keep a less common word only when a plain phrase under it keeps the same fact. If that phrase is “things got better”, the rare word was decoration. The Band 7 vocabulary list is a set of patterns to reuse when they match the sentence you are writing. It is not a pile of synonyms to rotate through one paragraph.

Collocation: the word and the one beside it

Band 7 names awareness of collocation. A word with the wrong partner is still inaccurate, even when a reader can guess the verb.

Before. People make pollution when they do driving to work, and cities should do a solution for this issue.

“Make pollution”, “do driving”, and “do a solution” are understandable. The combinations that belong are cause or produce pollution, drive to work, and find or offer a solution. The meaning gets through. The pairs do not.

After. Daily commuting adds exhaust to air that already sits over a busy road. One response is a bus lane on that road, so the same trip does not need a car.

Read the pair, not the single word. “Strong traffic” swaps the partner that belongs in “heavy traffic”. You do not need a rare adjective. You need the pair you would say in an explanation. The same test applies in Task 1: “rose sharply” is precise only when the line is actually sharp. A precise verb on the wrong shape is a word-choice error. Match the figure first.

Spelling and word formation

Both bands mention spelling and word formation. Band 6 allows some errors when they do not impede communication. Band 7 allows occasional errors in word choice, spelling, and word formation. One misspelling does not decide the band. Word formation is the shape: noun, verb, adjective, or adverb.

Before. Goverments should invest in public transport because it is more environmently than private cars.

“Goverments” is still readable. “Environmently” is the wrong form: the adjective is “environmental”, and the adverb is “environmentally”. The comparison is also unfinished. A reader can guess the meaning, so communication is not impeded. The form is still not precise.

After. Governments should fund more frequent buses. A full bus moves more people per litre of fuel than a car with one driver.

The spelling is corrected, and the comparison is a fact the sentence can hold. Cleaning typos while “problem” still covers four ideas does not make the range precise.

A paraphrase check for one paragraph

Do this on a paragraph you have already written. Do not start from a synonym list. The aim is to see whether a repeated word is hiding a different meaning, and whether the replacement still fits.

1. Underline each content word you used more than once, such as problem, people, increase, or good. Leave grammar words alone.
2. In the margin, write what the second use meant: the queue, the fare, the evening bus, the tenant. If that note matches the first use, the repetition can stay. If it names something else, the repeated word is hiding the difference.
3. Put the specific word into the sentence only if the sentence is still true. A paraphrase that changes the claim is a word-choice error.
4. Read the words on either side of the new word. If you would not say that pair in a normal explanation, it is a collocation problem. “Do a solution” fails. “Offer a solution” passes.
5. Check the form. A word describing a noun is usually an adjective, as in environmental damage. If you cannot form the word, use a short phrase you can control. An occasional error is allowed. A form you cannot control is not.
6. Read the paragraph aloud. Cut any word you cannot explain in a plain phrase.

Example paragraph, written for this page. A small charge on single-use bags is worth keeping at supermarket tills. Shoppers who already carry a bag stop taking a new one for a short walk home. The charge does not cut the plastic used to wrap food. I support the bag charge. I do not support a claim that it ends waste.

“Charge” and “plastic used to wrap food” name different things. “Support” repeats because the position is the same one.

A checklist before you treat the draft as Band 7 vocabulary

• The same content noun is not standing in for three different things.
• Each less common word can be swapped back to a plain phrase without changing the fact.
• The words beside it are a pair you would actually say.
• Spelling and word-formation errors are occasional, and none of them hides the meaning.
• The style matches the task: an essay, a letter, or a chart report, not a string of memorised phrases.
• You have not tried to raise Lexical Resource by adding synonyms while half of the prompt is still unanswered. That limit is Task Response or Task Achievement.

Read the Lexical Resource line against the descriptor

This site’s checker organises feedback around Task Response, Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource, and Grammatical Range and Accuracy. The methodology page calls the product a diagnostic and revision tool, and says the review looks for repeated weaknesses, including repetitive vocabulary. A band estimate shows a likely bottleneck. It is not an official IELTS score.

The IELTS Writing Checker takes Task 1 and Task 2. The form runs from 50 words. A complete Task 2 answer is still at least 250 words, and Academic Task 1 is at least 150. Paste a real paragraph. Read the Lexical Resource line before the overall number. If the weakest criterion is Task Response, this article is the wrong repair.

The checker accuracy article is a method for judging that note: name the weakest criterion, revise once, and read the public descriptor again. Ask whether the revised paragraph now shows a range that can be precise, and whether any less common word still fits its neighbours.

What this page is not claiming

This site is not affiliated with IELTS, the British Council, IDP, or Cambridge English. The band descriptions here are a paraphrase of the public Writing descriptors, so you can revise a draft. They are not the official wording, and they are not a result. Only an official IELTS test assigns an examined band. The before-and-after sentences and the bag-charge paragraph were written for this article. They are not past papers and not evidence of a band. Use them to see a repeated general noun beside a precise one, then run the same check on your own paragraph.