Short answer: you don't need a paid correction service to check your writing — you need the four band descriptors and a model answer to compare against. Score your essay honestly on each criterion, find the gap between yours and a same-band model, and fix the weakest part.
✍️ Open Typehush and practise, then self-mark against model essays →A correction service or tutor gives you two things: a score and a reason. You can produce both yourself with the public band descriptors (the exact rubric examiners use) and a model essay at your target band. Self-marking has a bonus a service can't match: the act of judging your own writing against the criteria teaches you what examiners look for, so you internalise the standard and start writing to it. Done honestly, it's not a poor substitute for feedback — it's some of the most effective practice there is.
Read your essay four times, once per criterion, and give each an honest band. Task Response: did you answer the exact question, take a clear position, develop it over 250+ words? Coherence & Cohesion: clear paragraphs, logical flow, natural linking? Lexical Resource: precise, natural vocabulary; correct spelling? Grammar: varied structures, mostly error-free? One pass per criterion stops you forming a vague overall impression and forces you to see specific strengths and weaknesses.
A score alone doesn't tell you how to improve — a comparison does. Read a model answer at your target band on the same question type and ask one question: what does it do that mine doesn't? Usually the answer is concrete: a clearer position, a more developed example, more precise word choice, or tighter paragraphing. That specific gap is your next practice target. Comparing bands makes the abstract descriptors visible, which is why it's the most useful single step in self-marking.
For the sharpest comparison, look at the same question answered at two different bands — say Band 6 and Band 8. Seeing one prompt handled two ways isolates exactly what the higher band does differently, because everything else is held constant. You'll notice the Band 8 version takes a firmer position, develops its example one step further, and controls its grammar more tightly than the Band 6 version of the same essay. That side-by-side view turns "be more developed" from a vague instruction into a concrete thing you can copy.
Separately from band-marking, run a quick error hunt — ideally the skill you'll use in the test's final minutes. Check for: articles (a/an/the), prepositions, subject-verb agreement, verb tense consistency, plurals and word endings, and spelling (remember: the computer test has no spell-check). Read once purely for these. Most catchable errors fall into this short list, and finding them yourself in practice trains you to find them under exam pressure.
The one thing that breaks self-marking is generosity. Marking yourself a band too high just hides the work you need to do. Be harsher than you'd like, and always attach a specific reason to each score ("Task Response 6 because my second body paragraph lists three ideas instead of developing one"). Vague self-praise teaches nothing; specific self-criticism gives you a concrete fix. If you struggle to be objective, wait a day before marking, so you read your essay as a stranger would.
Self-marking is one step of the improvement loop: write timed, self-mark, compare to a model, rewrite the weakest paragraph. The rewrite is where the lesson sticks, because you apply what you noticed. Typing high-band model essays makes the comparison sharper — you feel exactly how a Band 8 develops an idea or controls a sentence. On the computer test, practising this whole loop by typing also builds the speed and proofreading habits that protect your marks on the day.
Type all 156 Cambridge Band 6–8 model essays with live word count →Yes. Score your essay against the four public band descriptors and compare it to a model answer at your target band. The act of self-marking also teaches you what examiners look for.
Read it four times, once per criterion — Task Response, Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource, and Grammar — and give each an honest band with a specific reason.
Compare your essay to a same-band model on the same question type and ask what the model does that yours does not. That specific gap is your next practice target.
Articles, prepositions, subject-verb agreement, verb tense, plurals and word endings, and spelling — the computer test has no spell-check, so this is on you.
Typehush — practise typing high-band IELTS model essays for the computer-based Writing test. Start practising · Model-essay library · How to improve · Band descriptors