in last few days I was trying to re-learn everything.
so I feel that, nobody is saying this out loud but you need to write
280 words for 7 band,
280-300 for 8 band
300-325 for 9 band
why ?
because you simply cannot demonstrate the skills they have asked about.
after reading essays here, I feel we all do fine in 3 areas
Coherence and Cohesion
Lexical Resource
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
I mean who has ever got 6.5, is doing fine in these.
But, I rarely see an essay with proper "Task Achievement", mostly we don't stay on topic or we fill essays with low or no value sentences.
Traits of Band 9 : Task Achievement
Fully addresses all parts of the task presents a fully developed position in answer to the question with relevant, fully extended and well supported ideas
Traits of Band 8 : Task Achievement
sufficiently addresses all parts of the task presents a well-developed response to the question with relevant, extended and supported ideas
Traits of Band 7 : Task Achievement
addresses all parts of the task presents a clear position throughout the response presents, extends and supports main ideas, but there may
be a tendency to overgeneralise and/or supporting ideas may lack focus
now there's
Fully,
Sufficient, let's say okay - overgeneralize -and lack focus -vague-not-so-related ideas
https://www.google.com/search?q=High_scoring_IELTS_Writing+pdf
after reading this book, it seems one can not develop a full response under 280-300 words.
I know I have been strongly preaching for 260 words, but now I feel I am wrong at this. However, my friend got 7 with 255 words.
because essays are subjective, to make the reader/examiner fully satisfied, you need to write, explain, reason more.