How to Use This Tool
Pick a task, press Start, write in the box. The number to watch is rate you need now, not the clock.
Why the required rate is the useful number
IELTS Task 2 is 250 words in 40 minutes. That is 6.25 words a minute, which sounds so easy that almost nobody paces it — and then a large share of candidates hand in something short or unfinished. The arithmetic is not the problem. The problem is that falling behind produces no sensation.
The required rate fixes that, because it is not linear. Fall four minutes behind at the twenty-minute mark and the rate you need rises by about a quarter — from 8.3 to 10.6 words a minute — and it keeps rising faster the longer you leave it. Watching that number climb is information you can act on. Watching 18:42 become 14:42 is not.
The plan and check budget
The timer subtracts a planning block at the start and a checking block at the end, and calculates your required rate against the writing minutes only. This is deliberate, and it makes the target look harder than the naive figure. It should.
- Planning is where the essay is decided. Candidates who skip it write a first paragraph that commits them to a position they abandon by paragraph three, which costs more time than the planning would have.
- Checking is the part that never happens. It is at the end, so the clock eats it first. Reserving it explicitly means the tool warns you before it is gone, rather than after.
Five minutes each on a 40-minute task is a common recommendation, not a rule, and both fields are editable. Set them to zero if you disagree — the calculation just becomes the naive one.
Nothing is saved
What you type stays in the page and is discarded when you close the tab. There is no autosave and no recovery, deliberately — a tool that quietly kept your practice essays would be storing your writing without a good reason to. Copy anything you want to keep before you leave.
