Article 1- Academic Task 1 - Post #350232. Overall comments:

The writer demonstrates an overdependence on would when the simple past is necessary. A comparison of the original and marked versions will show where the changes were made. As the description of the details all appear in the past and are completed actions, the writer will do best to keep the tense in the past simple. Don’t overcomplicate things.
The writer has done a good job of making comparisons, but most of the focus tends to be on the year 1960, less on 2000 and only a passing reference to 1980. A balanced description would have been an improvement.

Article 2 - Academic Task 1 – Post #349672. Overall comments:

The writer has not used paragraphing. One block paragraph bunches up the details. Locate areas where ideas or trends tend to shift and create a new paragraph there with indentation. Aim for paragraphs that are well developed with one main idea. The appearance of an essay should not be underestimated as it can make a deep impression on first glance.
The introduction to the graph could have been better developed and more specific by explaining what details the graph intends to explain.
Be careful of repetition. This graph description overuses the word people. Most of the time, it is implied the percentages depict people, so it’s not necessary to repeat it every time a figure is introduced.
A concluding paragraph that brings the ideas together and focuses more closely on relevant comparisons would have been useful.

Article 3 - Academic Task 1 – Post #349530. Overall comments:

Indent the first line of each paragraph several spaces. This helps your reader clearly see where new paragraphs, and main ideas, begin.
Keep tenses consistent. The graph details changes occurring in the past. The past tense should guide the description of completed past changes. Comments regarding general trends or comparisons might use a different tense, most commonly the present tense, but the past tense is usually a safe bet.
The second sentence and the whole last paragraph in particular include information unrelated to the graph’s description. While these may in fact be reasons for some of the changes, they are speculative, and the prompt does not ask the writer to do this. Task 2 offers opportunity for deeper speculation, but anything further than a passing example of reasons for changes that are not mentioned or shown in the graph may distract from the skill the IELTS test is trying to gauge from the examinees. Task 1 aims to account for the writer’s ability to select and report the main features and make relevant comparisons to the graph or diagram provided on the task sheet.

Article 4 - Academic Task 2 – Post #350006. Overall comments:

The writer does a nice job focusing on the prompt and giving a clear opinion. The introduction and conclusion do a well in tying the whole essay together.
The essay shows some inaccuracies with ways of expressing comparison. The ability to compare and contrast is a vital skill in academic and examination writing, and knowing how to use the transitions that mark them is an essential tool for success.
There are some areas of word inversion. Notice the three instances where can is wrongly placed. These errors are systematic, and thus should be easier to fix once they’re located.

Article 5 - Academic Task 2 – Post #349686. Overall comments:

At 198 words, the submission is well under-length. Achieving the minimum word count is vital to success on the examination. Some of the ideas presented here would be even more convincing with better development.
The essay only partially answers the question. In the second paragraph, the writer includes information which is overly sentimental or informal as illustrated by the first and last sentences of that paragraph.
Minor and apparently careless mistakes, like failing to capitalize the first letter of each new sentence and basic spelling errors distract from the essay’s fluency.
I like the ideas here. I’d like to see them expressed more clearly and with a slightly more serious tone.

Article 6 - Academic Task 2 – Post #349880. Overall comments:

The writer focuses too heavily on Korean culture. Taking Korean technology and culture as a brief example could be helpful, but here it takes up nearly half of the argument. The writer also includes some other pieces of irrelevant information, especially the part mentioning the role of Korean women and filial piety. This has no clear connection to the task. Stay relevant to the required task.
I split the second paragraph into two separate ones, dividing the writer’s first and second arguments-different detailed points require their own paragraph. The two new paragraphs are now too short individually which indicates that the two ideas are not sufficiently developed. If I were this writer, I would have developed these two arguments further. I then would have kept the idea about South Koreans as a prime example, but stopped after the comment about the importance of Korea’s contribution to modern technology.
The one-line conclusion adds very little to the essay. I would have expanded it in any number of ways, for instance by providing a comment about the consequences of those who reject cultural and technological compatibility, or perhaps summarized the ideas already presented in a fresh way.

Article 7 - General Task 1 – Post #349852. Overall comments:

The writer of this letter answers the question rather well, as all three bullet points are covered, though a little better explanation on exactly what action the agency should take is a useful suggestion.
Incorrect tense and improper word choice are common mistakes in this letter. Precision and clarity and important factors in relating problems and requests. In terms of tense, Task 1 on the General test often requires the ability to shift smoothly between different tenses. In this particular task, the examinee is asked to describe herself (present tense), what happened (past tense or present perfect tense), and what should be done about it (future tense). Analyzing which tense the different bullet points call for might help.

Article 8 - General Task 1- Post #349843. Overall comments:

As mentioned above, Task 1 on the General test often requires the ability to shift smoothly between different tenses. In this task, the examinee is asked to describe herself (present tense), what happened (past tense or present perfect tense), and what should be done about it (future tense). The writer of this particular letter has had some difficulty in this regard. Analyzing which tense the different bullet points require might help.
Otherwise, the writer of this letter has addressed the prompt fairly well. Once you get writing it’s often easy to get carried away and forget exactly what you should be writing about. Here we can see a letter that focuses pretty well on the task’s requirements.

Article 9 - General Task 2 – Post #349645. Overall comments:

This essay is a little wordy (overuse of words and phrases), or unnecessary filler language. Overuse of argumentative phrases or transitions, the “admittedly”s, “in addition”s, “therefore”s, etc. can actual weaken, rather than strengthen, the essay. Here are two prime examples of excess language:
“The first plain truth…”
“I am presenting to develop my position here…”
There’s little need to mention the obvious; truths are truths and that’s that. There’s no need to tell your reader that you’re going to develop your position: just develop it!
The writing is a bit stiff in that it relies a lot on stock phrases and language from books that may tell you how to write an argument, and suggest certain phrases and structures that improve an essay such as this. However, I’d like to see more from the writer herself, something more unique and human, rather than such a heavy reliance on the language pointed out. To clarify, reliance on some phrases can add something positive, but too much takes away, and to a certain extent, de-humanizes the writing. Here’s an example from the conclusion:
? “…which correlate with each other to form the organic whole and thus become more persuasive than any single one of them, I strongly hold the opinion that…”

Article 10 - General Task 2 – Post #349889. Overall comments:

The writer demonstrates a good organization of ideas and some nice support for both sides of the argument on public smoking. However she only devotes a single sentence to smoking in offices, which should have been lent equal weight in the argument as was given to public smoking. Another paragraph on this would have vastly improved the quality of the response.
On first read, the last sentence of the first paragraph seems to be a thesis statement (the main idea of the essay), but the idea of the dynamic between “the people’s will to smoke” and those who shouldn’t have to breathe it in isn’t clearly followed up. The first paragraph should provide an indication of where the essay’s going to go and what will be discussed. The writer partially follows up some of those ideas, yet ignores others. It may help to imagine your first paragraph as an umbrella; it protects the whole essay beneath it. Whatever is mentioned in the following paragraphs should have a relationship to the ideas outlined there, otherwise it gets wet. Inclusion of information in the introduction that appear to be guiding ideas and are not discussed later means you’ve got a bad umbrella, and you’d ought to get a new one.