雅思考官会不会“凭感觉”给作文打分？| 雅思考官问答 04
有的考生觉得自己写作水平足以到 8 分，但多次考下来还是 7 分、7.5 分，甚至更低。雅思写作 Task 2 中 7 分和 8 分之间的差别是什么？考官是严格按照评分标准来打分的，还是会“凭感觉”？
Dr. IELTS: For a candidate to get an 8 for task 2, that means they need to get an 8 for all 4 criteria (TR=Task Response, CC=Coherence and Cohesion, LR=Lexical Resource and GRA=Grammatical Range and Accuracy).
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For TR, all parts of the prompt are adequately and sufficiently covered. If the TR is a 7, then all parts of the prompt are adequately covered. The word sufficiently is the difference. This word means you have covered the topic enough to the point where the examiners need to think what else could be reasonably put in the response. If examiners can think of other things that can be written, it will probably be a 7.
Another part of TR is the main ideas. For an 8, ideas are relevant, well-supported and well-extended. That means your reasons have examples, and those examples have support, and your support is appropriate. For a 7, main ideas are supported and developed but there may be a tendency to over-generalize and lack of clarity in supporting material. Simply put, your supporting material for your reason A is not very good and you may only have a sentence to support it.
For CC to be an 8, the message needs to be followed with ease. Ease can have different meanings with each examiner, but the point is we wouldn’t need to read it again because it was so smooth throughout the task. An important aspect is that the use of paragraphing is sufficient and appropriate. If the candidates use too many or not enough paragraphs, there is no way to get an 8. How candidates organize their answers is critical to get a higher score for CC.
For LR, a wide range of vocabulary is used fluently and flexibly to convey precise meanings. This is very difficult to do, even for native speakers. There are many words that describe a specific situation or event or emotion, etc. If you can use them throughout the response, there is a high chance you will get an 8. Another aspect is the use of idiomatic language. Phrasal verbs and idioms are a big part of the English language that many non-native speakers have a hard time grasping. For a 7, only a limited ability to use this kind of language would do. For an 8, skilful use of idiomatic language is required. Words must be spelled correctly almost all the time, although you are allowed a few errors, even with an 8.
For GRA, almost all the sentences are correct, and the range (mostly complex and simple) of those sentences is quite wide for an 8. For punctuation, it is well-managed and most likely varied (using semicolons, colons, dashes, quotations, etc). For a 7, there is a variety of complex sentences, but there is limited flexibility. So, a candidate might use a complex sentence structure throughout the task, but if they are using the same one, their ceiling is a 7.
As you can see, it is quite difficult to get a 7 or 8 for task 2 for any category. Remember, you must fulfill all the criteria of all categories of an 8 to get an 8. If the essay checks all the criteria for an 8 of LR except one, it will most likely be a 7. Examiners rarely see these kinds of papers and if they think one is a 7 or higher, they will read it again. Most examiners will count the errors grammatically or lexically and that might determine whether a 7 or 8 is given, and this is where the human element and judgement comes in. If there was a standard, humans would not be marking papers.
Examiners are supposed to use their professional judgement and mark the paper as is. Because examiners see 7s and 8s so infrequently, it is hard to get a feel for what higher level papers look like. A lot of examiners will mark 200 papers and maybe write the number seven once or twice at most. When examiners read something that might pique their judgement, they will carefully read it and determine the best score.
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孟庆伟 Justin
个人微信 ID：justinqmeng
现象级英语联合创始人
《经济学人》11 年研究者
雅思写作 8 分，口语 8 分
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