Writing Sample

The long writing task at the end of the test. It counts towards your Writing subscore like every other task — and it is also sent, as text, to every institution you share results with. It is the only piece of your English an admissions officer reads directly.

The Facts


Time	5 minutes
Preparation time	30 seconds
How many per test	1
Subscore	Writing
Adaptive	No
Scored as	Writing criteria, and sent to institutions

What You See

A question asking for an opinion or an experience, thirty seconds to read and plan, then five minutes to write. The prompt stays on screen. There is no word minimum displayed.

Institutions receive the Writing Sample from the specific test whose results you send them. They cannot see samples from your other attempts, which means each sitting is judged on its own.

This is an admissions document as well as a test answer. Write it as though someone in the department you are applying to will read it, because someone will.

A Structure That Survives Five Minutes

Five minutes is enough for about 150 to 220 words, which is four short paragraphs. Deciding the shape in the thirty-second planning window is what stops the answer drifting.

Paragraph	Job	Roughly
1	State your position in the first sentence. No throat-clearing.	25-35 words
2	First reason, developed, with a concrete example.	55-75 words
3	Second reason, or a genuine concession you then answer.	50-70 words
4	Close by resolving the position rather than restating it.	25-35 words

A real concession scores far better than a token one. "Groups are better at deciding and individuals are better at producing" resolves the question; "of course, both have advantages" does not.

What Separates 100 from 130

Both answers are on topic and largely accurate. The difference is visible in all four criteria at once.

Criterion	Around 100	Around 130
Content	Two ideas, restated. No examples.	A clear position, two developed reasons, one concrete example, and a real concession.
Discourse coherence	Sentences joined with and and also.	Each paragraph does one job; the close resolves rather than repeats.
Grammar	All simple sentences, one tense.	Simple and complex sentences mixed, more than one tense, at least one passive or conditional.
Lexis	Vocabulary borrowed from the prompt.	Precise nouns and verbs, no repeated key term.

Two full answers at these bands, on the same prompt, are on the Writing samples page.

Common Mistakes

Spending the thirty seconds reading rather than planning. Read in ten, plan in twenty.
Writing an introduction that says what the essay will do instead of taking a position.
Running out of time mid-paragraph. Write the closing sentence at four minutes even if the middle is thinner than you wanted.
Using a memorised template. It breaks the test rules and it reads as one.
Never rereading. Thirty seconds of checking touches Grammar and Lexis together.

How to Practise

One five-minute essay a day, graded against the four criteria rather than on whether it sounds good.
Practise the thirty-second plan separately: read a prompt, write four words of structure, stop.
Reread your own answers a week later. Anything you cannot follow is a discourse coherence problem.
Type. If typing is the bottleneck, everything else is theoretical.

Kirill O'Nayd, Duolingo English Test expert

Written by Kirill O'Nayd

English test expert and educator at TestSucceed, where he builds the Duolingo English Test practice tasks and mock tests and has spent years taking apart how computer-adaptive, AI-graded exams award their points. See all TestSucceed preparation materials.