How Write Essay works
The prompt is a few sentences on a general academic or social issue, such as education, technology, work or the environment. It usually states a position or a situation and then tells you what to do: agree or disagree, discuss both views, weigh advantages and disadvantages, or suggest causes and solutions. You have 20 minutes to write 200 to 300 words. There is no spell check.
Write Essay is part of Part 1 (Speaking and Writing) and feeds your writing score. Unlike Summarize Written Text, where you compress someone else's argument, here you build your own.
What is scored
Pearson assesses essays on seven factors:
- Content: you answer the actual question, including every part of it.
- Development, structure and coherence: your ideas are grouped into logical paragraphs and move clearly from one to the next.
- Form: the essay is between 200 and 300 words.
- General linguistic range: you can express ideas precisely with a variety of sentence structures.
- Grammar: your sentences are accurate.
- Vocabulary range: your word choice is varied and suits the topic.
- Spelling: words are spelled correctly, without help from a spell checker.
Since August 2025, some responses are part-scored by trained human raters as well as the automated system, and heavily templated or memorized responses may be flagged. A familiar paragraph structure is fine. A block of stock sentences that could fit any prompt is a liability.
How to answer
- Plan for two or three minutes. Underline what the prompt asks you to do, decide your position, and jot down two main reasons, each with a concrete example.
- Write a short introduction. Restate the issue in your own words and give your answer to the question in the first paragraph, so the reader knows where you stand.
- Write two body paragraphs. Each one opens with a clear point, explains it, and supports it with an example. Keep one idea per paragraph.
- Add a counterpoint if the prompt invites it. For "discuss both views" prompts, the other side needs its own paragraph, not a single line.
- Conclude in two or three sentences. Restate your position and the main reasons without introducing anything new.
- Save the last two or three minutes to proofread. Look for spelling slips, missing articles and verb agreement.
An essay of about 240 to 280 words gives you room to develop ideas while staying safely inside the limit.
Common mistakes
- Answering a nearby question. If the prompt asks "to what extent do you agree", an essay that only lists advantages has not answered it.
- Going over 300 words, or stopping short of 200, which costs you form marks you could have kept for free.
- Writing examples so general that they add nothing, such as "this is very important in today's world".
- Using long, complex sentences you cannot control. Accurate medium-length sentences beat ambitious ones full of errors.
- Forgetting paragraph breaks, which hides your structure.
- Skipping the proofread because the timer feels tight.
Reading the prompt before you write
Take a prompt like this: Some people believe university education should be free for every student. Others think students should pay part of the cost. Discuss both views and give your own opinion.
It contains three jobs: explain why some favor free tuition, explain why others want students to contribute, and state what you think. An essay that argues only one side, however well written, leaves a third of the task undone. Before you type your first sentence, count the jobs in the prompt and make sure your paragraph plan covers each one.