Writing Sample
One prompt, five minutes, no spell-check. The longest piece of writing on the test, and — with the Speaking Sample — one of the two responses institutions can read.
- 5 min on the clock, Once per full test
- Feeds your Writing subscore
- Built for the current July 2025 DET format, including the new Interactive Speaking task
The Writing Sample gives you an open prompt and five minutes to respond in writing. It appears once, and it is the longest continuous text you will produce on the test.
Five minutes is short for an essay and long for everything else on the DET, which makes it awkward to pitch. Write too carefully and you produce two polished paragraphs with no argument; write too fast and you produce four paragraphs of errors. The people who do well have decided, before the timer starts, roughly how much they are going to write and in what shape.
Like the Speaking Sample, this is shared with the institutions receiving your results. It is read, not only scored.
What you actually see
A prompt, a text box, a five-minute countdown, and a word counter. No spelling or grammar assistance of any kind.
- An open prompt, usually asking for an opinion or a position on an everyday issue.
- A plain text box with a live word count.
- Five minutes, counting down.
- No spell-checker, no autocorrect, no grammar suggestions.
- One appearance in a full test.
A five-minute shape that finishes
Prompt: "Should cities charge drivers to enter the city centre?"
Budget the five minutes rather than the words:
- 0:00–0:30 — decide. Pick a side. Not the side you believe; the side you can support fastest. Nobody is grading your politics.
- 0:30–1:00 — position. One or two sentences stating the view plainly. "Cities should charge for centre access, but only where there is a real alternative."
- 1:00–2:30 — first reason with support. Your strongest argument, developed with a consequence or an example. Development is what separates this from a list.
- 2:30–3:45 — second reason, or the objection. Acknowledging the counter-argument and answering it is the highest-value move available here — it demonstrates concessive grammar and it makes the writing look like thinking.
- 3:45–4:20 — close. One sentence that resolves rather than repeats.
- 4:20–5:00 — re-read. Non-negotiable. There is no spell-check, and forty seconds of proofreading recovers more marks than another sentence would earn.
Notice that the last forty seconds are not writing. That is deliberate, and it is the part almost everyone skips.
How Writing Sample is scored
The Writing Sample feeds Writing, and so Literacy and Production.
It is assessed on the usual dimensions of written English: grammatical accuracy, range and precision of vocabulary, organisation and coherence, and whether the response actually addresses the prompt.
That last dimension deserves emphasis, because it is where the sharpest scoring cliff sits. When we tested our own grader, an articulate, well-organised essay that answered a different question initially scored in the low B2 range — the grammar and vocabulary dimensions simply outvoted the relevance one. That was wrong, and we now gate the score on task fulfilment so that an off-topic response cannot be rescued by good English. The official rubric treats relevance as fundamental in the same way.
On length: there is no published minimum, but there is a practical one. A 40-word response cannot demonstrate organisation, and organisation is being assessed.
| What the scorer looks at | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Whether you answered the prompt | Gates everything. Good English on the wrong question is a low score, not a medium one. |
| Grammatical accuracy | No spell-check, no autocorrect. Errors are fully visible and proofreading time is the cheapest fix. |
| Range and precision of vocabulary | Specific words over general ones, and variety over repetition of the same three. |
| Organisation and development | A position, support, and a resolution. A list of opinions is not an argument. |
| Enough text to assess | Very short responses cannot demonstrate structure, so they score below the writer's actual level. |
The mistakes that cost the most
Three errors dominate: not answering the prompt, not finishing, and not proofreading. All three are decisions rather than deficiencies.
Do this
- Answer the actual question. Re-read the prompt after your first sentence and check you are still on it.
- Take a clear position early. Balanced hand-wringing across five minutes reads as weaker than a defended view.
- Develop one argument properly instead of listing three. Development is what the organisation criterion rewards.
- Include one concession — although, admittedly, while it is true that. It demonstrates structure and reasoning in a single move.
- Reserve the last forty seconds for proofreading. It is worth more than another sentence.
Not this
- Do not write a memorised introduction. It costs you thirty seconds and demonstrates nothing about your English or your thinking.
- Do not attempt a complex sentence you cannot finish. Unfinished clauses are worse than simple complete ones.
- Do not use vocabulary you are not sure of to sound advanced. A misused rare word costs more than a correct common one.
- Do not spend two minutes on the introduction. The argument is what is being assessed.
- Do not run to the buzzer. Being cut off mid-sentence costs both the sentence and the proofreading pass.
How to actually get better at Writing Sample
Five-minute writing improves quickly, but only if the correction step is part of the practice. Writing more without correcting more just rehearses your existing errors.
Write to five minutes, then correct for twenty
The correction pass is where the improvement happens. Producing ten uncorrected samples teaches you nothing you did not already know.
Keep an error log
Write down every mistake you make and group them. Almost everyone has four or five recurring errors that account for most of their lost accuracy — articles, prepositions, agreement, tense. Fix those and the score moves.
Practise taking a position in thirty seconds
Take twenty prompts and write only the position sentence for each. The decision is what eats the clock, and it is separately trainable.
Learn concessive structures cold
Although, while, admittedly, even if. One well-placed concession lifts the organisation and range judgement noticeably, and they are easy to over-learn.
Type without a spell-checker on purpose
If you always write with autocorrect, you do not know your own error rate. Turn it off for practice so the test is not the first time you see it.
How much this one task moves your score
One appearance, feeding Writing, Literacy and Production — and, as the longest written response, supplying more evidence than the shorter writing items.
Writing is frequently the weakest of the four individual subscores, because it is the skill people practise least outside a classroom and because the DET gives it fewer items than reading. That combination makes it high-leverage: there is usually more room to move here than anywhere else on the report.
It is also, with the Speaking Sample, one of the two things an institution can actually read. Whatever the score says, this is the piece of English that represents you.
Writing Sample: questions people ask
How many words should I write in five minutes?
There is no published minimum, but around 120–180 words works for most writers — enough to develop an argument and still leave time to proofread. What matters more than the exact number is deciding before you start, so you neither stop at 60 words nor get cut off mid-paragraph.
Is there a spell-checker?
No. There is no spelling or grammar assistance of any kind, which is why reserving the last forty seconds to re-read is worth more than writing another sentence. If you normally write with autocorrect on, turn it off when you practise.
What happens if I misunderstand the prompt?
It is the most expensive error available on this task. Relevance gates the score — an articulate essay answering a different question scores as a weak response, not a medium one, because good grammar cannot substitute for having addressed the question.
Can institutions read what I wrote?
Yes. The Writing Sample and the Speaking Sample are shared with the institutions you send results to. Your other responses produce a number; these two are read and heard.
Should I write about what I actually believe?
Only if it is the side you can argue fastest. Nobody is assessing your opinion — they are assessing your English. Picking the position you can support with a concrete example in ninety seconds is a strategy, not a compromise.
What kind of prompt does the Writing Sample give?
A single open opinion question on an everyday topic — whether something is worthwhile, which of two options is better, whether you agree with a statement. There is no research and no specialist knowledge involved; you pick a side and defend it.
Can I invent examples to support my argument?
Yes, and it helps — nobody verifies them, and a specific, plausible example develops your point far better than an abstract claim does. What is assessed is the English and the reasoning, not whether the anecdote is literally true.
Does it matter whether I use British or American spelling?
Either is accepted, so write in whichever you spell more reliably rather than switching to one you second-guess. The errors that cost you are misspellings, not the variant you chose — pick the one that produces fewer of them.
How long is the Writing Sample?
Five minutes on one open prompt, appearing once in a full test. It is the longest continuous text you produce.
How many paragraphs should I write?
Two or three is realistic in five minutes. What matters is that the response has a position, support that develops it, and a close — a single undeveloped paragraph demonstrates no organisation, and four rushed ones demonstrate no accuracy.
Do I need a formal academic style?
No. Clear, well-organised standard English is what is assessed. Straining for formality produces the awkward constructions and misused vocabulary that cost accuracy marks.
Can I use "I" in the Writing Sample?
Yes. These prompts ask for your view, and stating it directly is clearer than the impersonal constructions people reach for. Clarity is assessed; formality for its own sake is not.
What if I disagree with both sides of the prompt?
Say so and defend that position — a qualified view, argued properly, is a strong response. What fails is hedging for five minutes without ever committing to anything.
Should I plan before writing?
Briefly. Thirty seconds to choose a side and your strongest argument, then write. At five minutes, extended planning eats the time you need to produce the text being assessed.
What is the single biggest mistake on the Writing Sample?
Not answering the prompt. Relevance gates the score, so an articulate essay on an adjacent question scores as a weak response rather than a middling one — good grammar cannot compensate for having addressed the wrong thing. Re-read the prompt after your first sentence.
Where Writing Sample sits in a full test
No task on the DET is scored in isolation. The adaptive engine is building one picture of your English out of every response, so it helps to know how much of the hour this particular task accounts for and which of the others are drawing on the same ability.
The table below is the whole test. Your current page is highlighted.
| Question type | Time | How often | Subscores it feeds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Read & Complete | 3 minutes | 3–6 times | Reading, Writing |
| Read & Select | 5 seconds | 15–18 times | Reading |
| Fill in the Blanks | 20 seconds | 6–9 times | Reading, Writing |
| Listen & Type | 1 minute | 6–9 times | Listening, Writing |
| Speak About the Photo | 90 seconds | at least once | Speaking |
| Interactive Speaking | 35 seconds each | 6–7 questions | Speaking, Listening |
| Write About the Photo | 1 minute | at least twice | Writing |
| Interactive Reading | 7 minutes | 2 sets | Reading |
| Interactive Listening | 6 minutes | 2 sets | Listening, Speaking |
| Speaking Sample | 3 minutes | once | Speaking |
| Writing Sample — you are here | 5 minutes | once | Writing |
Two things are worth reading off that table. The first is that the tasks feeding Writing are not only this one — improvement transfers, so time spent here shows up elsewhere. The second is that the tasks taking the largest share of the hour are not the ones most people practise most.
Question types that use the same muscles
Write About the Photo
An image appears and you write one or more sentences describing it.
Read the guide → SpeakingSpeaking Sample
An extended spoken response to an open prompt. It is sent to institutions alongside your score.
Read the guide → Listening + SpeakingInteractive Listening
A spoken conversation unfolds in turns. At each turn you choose the best reply, then afterwards answer comprehension questions and write a summary of what was said.
Read the guide →Start a practice test
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