Grading Transparency
How we score your writing
IELTS Memo uses a frontier AI model to grade essays across all four official IELTS band descriptors. Here's exactly how it works — and how we verify the scores are consistent.
The method
How your essay is scored
Every essay is analysed against the four official IELTS Writing Band Descriptors — the same framework used by human examiners in the real exam. Each criterion is scored independently on a 0–9 scale in 0.5 increments, and the overall band is the mean of all four.
How well the essay addresses the task — argument clarity, position, examples.
Logical flow, paragraph structure, use of linking words and reference chains.
Vocabulary range, precision, collocations, and avoiding over-repetition.
Sentence variety, tense control, and error frequency.
Scores are given in 0.5-band increments — the same intervals used in the real exam. No artificial rounding is applied beyond that.
Limitations
What AI grading can and cannot do
It is not an official score
Scores are AI estimates for practice purposes. Only IDP, British Council, and Cambridge Assessment English can issue official IELTS certificates.
Band 8–9 nuance is harder to detect
The gap between Band 7.5 and Band 9 relies on subtleties that experienced human examiners are better at judging. Scores at the top of the range should be treated as approximate.
Task 1 Academic requires context
Chart/graph essays are scored using an image of the visual, which the AI can read accurately for most standard chart types. Complex infographics may produce slightly less precise feedback.
Consistency testing
How we verify the scores are stable
We regularly run the same essay through the full grading pipeline multiple times in parallel and compare scores. The goal is to confirm that if you submitted the same essay twice, you would get the same result.
Perfect — 0 variance on all four criteria
Good — maximum ±0.5 band on any criterion
Fair — maximum ±1.0 band on any criterion
Poor — variance above 1.0 on any criterion
Live results
Most recent consistency checks
Starter essay (Task 2 Academic)
2 runs · 2 weeks ago
Perfect — 0 variance
±0 across all criteria
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