DET Writing Scoring

Every piece of writing on the DET — the photo captions, both halves of Interactive Writing, the conversation summary and the Writing Sample — is graded by AI on the same four criteria. Learning them by name is the fastest way to know what a weak answer is missing.

The Scale

Every DET number — the overall score and all eight subscores — sits on the same 10 to 160 scale in steps of five. Your overall score is the average of the four individual subscores, so each of Reading, Listening, Writing and Speaking carries a quarter of the total.

DET score	CEFR level	User	What it means in practice
10-55	A1 / A2	Basic user	Can handle very simple, predictable exchanges. Below the level almost any degree programme asks for.
60-95	B1	Independent user	Can deal with familiar matters and produce connected text on everyday topics. Enough for some foundation and pathway programmes.
100-125	B2	Independent user	Can follow a technical discussion in their field and argue a position. The band most undergraduate admissions sit in.
130-150	C1	Proficient user	Can use English flexibly for academic and professional purposes. What competitive and postgraduate programmes ask for.
155-160	C2	Proficient user	Can handle anything read or heard with ease and express fine shades of meaning. Rare, and above what any institution requires.

The integrated subscores are simple averages, rounded to the nearest five: Literacy is Reading and Writing, Comprehension is Reading and Listening, Conversation is Speaking and Listening, Production is Speaking and Writing. Nothing new is measured to produce them.

The Four Criteria

Criterion	What is inside it
Content	Task achievement and relevance, appropriacy of style, development of ideas, and the overall effect on the reader.
Discourse coherence	Clarity, cohesion between parts, progression of ideas, and global structure such as introductions, conclusions and paragraphing.
Grammar	Grammatical complexity, grammatical accuracy, and punctuation.
Lexis	Lexical diversity, lexical sophistication, word choice, word formation, and spelling. US and UK spelling are both accepted.

There is no fluency criterion and no pronunciation criterion in writing — those two exist only for speaking. Writing has four criteria; speaking has six.

The Six Score Bands

Duolingo grades production answers into six bands. The descriptors below are condensed from the official scoring guide, one column per criterion.

Score	Content	Discourse coherence	Grammar	Lexis
155-160	Fully achieves the task, fully developed, appropriate style.	Smooth-flowing and cohesive throughout.	A wide range of structures used flexibly; only the slips an expert makes.	Precise, accurate, idiomatic vocabulary.
130-150	Achieves the task; clear, relevant and appropriately developed.	Well-structured, coherent and cohesive.	A wide range of structures; errors are rare.	Accurate and appropriate, with a broad range.
100-125	Mostly achieves the task; mostly clear and developed.	Generally well-structured, with occasional lapses.	A range of structures; errors do not usually block communication.	Generally accurate and appropriate for the task.
60-95	Partially achieves the task; not always clear, relevant or developed.	Somewhat organised, with lapses in coherence or cohesion.	A limited range; some errors interfere with communication.	Generally clear but limited.
30-55	Minimally achieves the task; short, basic, or partly off-topic.	Simple cohesive devices, repetitive or incoherent at times.	Basic structures with frequent errors.	Very limited, with repetition and word-choice errors.
10-25	Does not achieve the task; off-topic or very short.	Not organised; isolated phrases and sentences.	Only basic structures; errors are very common.	Very limited and inadequate for the task.

The Same Prompt at Two Bands

The prompt: Some people believe that working in a group produces better results than working alone. Do you agree or disagree?

Mid band, roughly 60-95

Content — on topic, but the same two ideas appear three times and nothing is illustrated with an example.
Discourse coherence — sentences are joined with and and also; there is no shape beyond a list.
Grammar — every sentence is simple and present tense. Accuracy is decent, but range is what is being measured, and there is none.
Lexis — the vocabulary comes almost entirely from the prompt itself.

Strong band, roughly 130-150

Content — takes a position in the first sentence, gives two developed reasons, then concedes a real exception rather than a token one.
Discourse coherence — each paragraph does one job, and the last sentence resolves the position rather than restating it.
Grammar — a mix of simple and complex sentences, more than one tense, and at least one passive or conditional.
Lexis — precise nouns and verbs, no repeated key term, and no reliance on the prompt’s own wording.

Full model answers at both bands are on the DET Writing samples page.

What Actually Raises a Writing Band

Answer every part of the prompt. Content is checked first, and a missing half caps the answer regardless of the English.
Add one example per idea. Development is the difference between "partially achieves" and "achieves".
Vary sentence length deliberately. One subordinate clause and one passive per answer is enough to move Grammar out of the limited-range descriptor.
Stop reusing the prompt’s words. Lexical diversity is measured, and the prompt’s vocabulary is the first thing a weak answer leans on.
Leave 30 seconds to reread. Spelling sits in Lexis and punctuation sits in Grammar, so a final pass touches two criteria at once.

DET, IELTS and TOEFL

Duolingo publishes its own concordance with IELTS and TOEFL iBT, and this is the table admissions offices use when they translate an existing requirement into a DET minimum.

DET	IELTS band	TOEFL iBT
160	8.5-9	120
155	8	119
150	8	117-118
145	7.5	113-116
140	7.5	109-112
135	7	104-108
130	7	98-103
125	6.5	93-97
120	6.5	87-92
115	6	82-86
110	6	76-81
105	6	70-75
100	5.5	65-69
95	5.5	59-64
90	5	53-58
85	5	47-52
80	5	41-46
75	4.5	35-40
70	4.5	30-34
65	4.5	24-29
10-60	0-4	0-23

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.