摘要：This study investigated the strengths and weaknesses of Iranian IELTS candidates in IELTS writing (task 2). This paper used the analytical scoring technique based on the IELTS band descriptor of writing task 2 (public version) 50 writing samples (25 males and 25 females) obtained from four Mock-IELTS tests, taken by IELTS candidates, were used and evaluated by two raters. In order to find the contribution of each component to the total score variance, a multi regression analysis was run. The results showed that Task Response accounted for the largest amount of variance in the total scores (0.429), with Lexical Resource, Grammar Range & Accuracy, and Cohesion & Coherence accounting for 0.345, 0.226, and 0.194, respectively, meaning TR was the strongest point and CC the weakest. Descriptive analysis was run to find the highest scores achieved in each component, which was 5.0 in Task Response, 6.0 in Cohesion & Coherence, 6.0 in Lexical Resource, and 6.0 in Grammar Range & Accuracy. The strengths and weaknesses of candidates in Cohesion & Coherence, Lexical resource, and Grammar Range & Accuracy were investigated using a coding system. First, more than half of the cohesive devices used were accurate. Second, misspelling had the highest frequencies. Last, punctuation was the most counted error. Since CC is the weakest point of Iranian candidates in writing task 2, teachers are advised to address both Cohesion & Coherence and Task Response together since these two criteria are closely related. In terms of Lexical Resource, it is recommended that students be led into programs where they can improve their spelling, as it was the most problematic in the area of LR
关键词：task response;cohesion & coherence;lexical resource;grammar range & accuracy
