IELTS Task 2 Review

Core Rule

Imitate the teacher's marking style before giving generic IELTS advice. Use the full teacher samples and the official descriptors as the two authorities:

1. Read references/teacher_style.md before reviewing.
2. Read references/ielts_task2_band_descriptors.md before scoring.
3. Use references/teacher_samples_index.md to find relevant sample files, then read specific full samples from references/teacher_samples/ when needed.
4. Use references/review_format.md for the output structure.

Workflow

1. Identify the Task 2 prompt and the student's essay.

• Normal DOCX input should be an unreviewed student file containing the prompt, optional outline, and the student's essay.
• For a .docx, first run scripts/extract_task2_input.py to separate the prompt, optional outline, and student essay.
• Preserve student_essay_paragraph_indices from the extraction result and include it in the review plan.
• Treat short outline bullets after the prompt as planning notes, not as the scored essay.
• Existing comments, italic rewrites, feedback, or model essays are not expected in normal use. If they are detected, treat them as accidental leftover material only; do not score, rewrite, or copy them as part of the student's essay.
• For pasted text, separate prompt and essay from headings, blank lines, or explicit labels.

1. Check task fit before polishing language.

• If the essay content, position, or logic is significantly off-topic, mark this first in comments.
• Later italic rewrites and the final model essay must redirect the mistaken idea back to the task.

1. Select relevant teacher samples before writing comments.

• Use scripts/find_teacher_sample.py with the input filename or prompt.
• The script normalizes spaces/underscores, so C17T3 Writing Task 2.docx maps to C17T3_Writing_Task_2.json.
• If the exact file sample is not relevant, use references/teacher_samples_index.md and the prompt wording to choose a closer sample.

1. Split the essay into review units.

• Use sentence-level units when problems are local.
• Use paragraph-level units when logic, task response, or coherence needs bigger repair.

1. Add teacher-style comments.

• Comments must be short, English, practical, and anchored to specific words or phrases.
• A non-empty comment target must match text inside the selected student essay paragraph; do not fall back to prompt, outline, or the whole wrong paragraph.
• Prefer concrete notes: informal, repetition, unnatural, could be more concise, Careful with articles, Off-topic, This is vague.

1. Add italic rewrites after the relevant original unit.

• Rewrites should be concise, formal, natural, and at a stable Band 7.5 standard.
• Keep rewrites close to the student's intended meaning; avoid making local fixes sound like an over-polished Band 9 sample.

1. Score the student's original essay strictly using official Task 2 descriptors.

• Score Task Response, Coherence & Cohesion, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range & Accuracy, and estimated overall band.
• For this teacher-style educational review, criterion scores and the estimated overall score may use whole or half bands, such as 6, 6.5, or 7. Use .5 when the original essay sits between adjacent whole-band descriptor anchors; do not force criterion scores to integers.
• Do this before giving improvement advice.

1. Give concise Band 7.5 / 8.0-oriented feedback.

• Separate issues blocking stable Band 7.5 from improvements needed to move toward 8.0.
• Keep this section short, like the teacher samples.

1. Write a 250-300 word model essay at a stable Band 8.0 standard.

• Use exactly four paragraphs:

1. Introduction: paraphrase the prompt and state the essay's position.
2. Body paragraph 1.
3. Body paragraph 2.
4. Conclusion: begin with In conclusion.

• Leave one blank line between model essay paragraphs in the output DOCX.
• Align it with the official criteria.
• Preserve the student's main position when it is on-topic and defensible.
• Correct any flawed or off-topic logic from the original draft.
• It must be strong enough for Band 8.0: a clear and well-developed position, relevant and well-extended support, well-managed cohesion, flexible topic vocabulary, and mostly error-free grammar.
• Keep it realistic and teacher-like, not an over-polished Band 9 essay.

1. Generate a reviewed .docx by default.

• For input MyEssay.docx, output MyEssay(reviewed).docx in the same folder unless the user specifies another path.
• For DOCX input, create the reviewed file by copying the original DOCX first.
• Write comments directly into the copied original essay paragraphs; do not create a second copy of the student's essay for comments.
• Anchor comments only inside extracted student essay paragraphs, never inside prompt or outline paragraphs.
• Insert italic rewrites immediately after the matched original essay paragraph.
• Keep the original prompt and student essay in place; do not repeat the task prompt.
• For pasted text, output to /Users/aaronliang/Desktop/IELTS_Task2_Reviewed_YYYYMMDD_HHMM.docx.
• Use Times New Roman for all added review text and comments.
• Use Cyber Esme as the Word comment author.
• Do not add big visible section headings such as Task, Reviewed Essay, Score, or Model Essay.
• Preserve the original word/document.xml root namespace declarations and mc:Ignorable; do not leave undeclared prefixes such as w14, w15, w16*, or wp14.
• Insert a page break before the score and feedback page; keep the score lines and To Reach Band 7.5 / 8.0 together; insert another page break before the model essay.
• Never overwrite the original essay unless explicitly requested.

1. Clean up temporary byproducts after a successful review.

• Delete temporary review plan files such as review_plan_c17t3.json.
• Prefer creating review plans in /private/tmp or use --cleanup-plan when running scripts/create_review_docx.py.
• Do not delete source essays, final reviewed .docx files, or bundled reference files.

Bundled Resources

• references/teacher_style.md: teacher imitation rules distilled from the 11 samples.
• references/teacher_samples_index.md: prompt and count index for all samples.
• references/teacher_samples/*.json and *.md: full extracted teacher-reviewed samples.
• references/ielts_task2_band_descriptors.md: complete Task 2 descriptors extracted from the local PDF.
• references/review_format.md: canonical reviewed document structure.
• scripts/extract_task2_input.py: extract prompt, optional outline, and student essay from a Task 2 DOCX; it also protects against accidental leftover reviewed content.
• scripts/find_teacher_sample.py: find matching bundled teacher samples using normalized filename and prompt overlap.
• scripts/create_review_docx.py: create a reviewed DOCX from a JSON review plan; DOCX input is copied first, comments are anchored into extracted student essay paragraphs, and score/model sections are appended.
• scripts/validate_review_docx.py: verify comments, italic rewrites, student-essay paragraph comment anchoring when --input-docx is supplied, root namespace compatibility, score lines, retained To Reach Band 7.5 / 8.0 title, removed old headings, and model essay length/four-paragraph structure.
• scripts/extract_teacher_samples.py: regenerate sample references from the 11 source DOCX files.
• scripts/extract_task2_band_descriptors.py: regenerate descriptors from the PDF.

JSON Review Plan For DOCX Creation

When using scripts/create_review_docx.py, first produce a JSON file with this shape:

{
  "prompt": "Task prompt",
  "student_essay_paragraph_indices": [12, 14, 16, 18],
  "review_units": [
    {
      "original": "Student sentence or paragraph.",
      "comments": [{"target": "specific phrase", "text": "Short teacher-style comment"}],
      "rewrite": "Italic teacher-style improvement."
    }
  ],
  "scores": {
    "Task Response": "6.5",
    "Coherence & Cohesion": "7",
    "Lexical Resource": "6.5",
    "Grammatical Range & Accuracy": "6.5",
    "Overall": "6.5"
  },
  "score_explanation": ["Short evidence-based scoring note."],
  "focus_feedback": ["Focus on grammar accuracy and natural collocations."],
  "model_essay": [
    "Paragraph 1: introduction with paraphrase and position.",
    "Paragraph 2: body paragraph 1.",
    "Paragraph 3: body paragraph 2.",
    "Paragraph 4: In conclusion, ..."
  ]
}

Scores are teacher-style estimates for the review output, so each criterion and Overall may be a whole band or a half band.

Then run:

python scripts/create_review_docx.py review_plan.json --input-docx MyEssay.docx --cleanup-plan
python scripts/validate_review_docx.py "MyEssay(reviewed).docx" --input-docx MyEssay.docx

For pasted text, omit --input-docx and the script will default to the Desktop output path. If the review plan is a permanent example/reference file, omit --cleanup-plan.

Quality Bar

• The reviewed DOCX must contain real Word comments, not plain bracketed notes.
• At least the most important local issues must be anchored to specific text.
• Italic rewrites must appear after the original unit and be written at a stable Band 7.5 standard.
• The score must evaluate the original essay, not the revised essay.
• The model essay must be exactly 4 paragraphs with one blank line between paragraphs, 250-300 words, and should stand securely at Band 8.0 according to the official Task 2 descriptors.
• The style should look closer to the teacher's samples than to a generic IELTS tutor.
• Temporary files from the review process should be removed after successful validation.