Common Mistakes Preventing A Score of 7
Common Mistakes Preventing A Score of 7
Common Mistakes Preventing A Score of 7
Using Contractions
Contractions are used frequently in spoken English to shorten words. However, they should not
be used in the IELTS Writing exams. You will lose silly points for making these common IELTS
grammar mistakes.
So instead use:
Similar to above, one of the IELTS grammar mistakes I regularly see is students typing a number
instead of writing out the word for that number. This shortcut has its place in some forms of
writing, but should not be used in the IELTS Writing exam.
Wrong example: “Recent research shows that only 2 out of 10 individuals around the world
today do not have mobile phones.”
Correct example: “Recent research shows that only two out of ten individuals around the world
today do not have mobile phones.”
I see this one time and time again. Unfortunately, you cannot combine two complete sentences
with just a comma. You either have to use a semicolon (;) or a conjunction (and/or/but).
Wrong example: “This is because more ways of communication are now available, people are
now being connected through mobile phones and a range of network devices.”
Correct example: “This is because more ways of communication are available and people are
being connected through mobile phones and a range of network devices.”
Advice
Information
Research
If a noun is uncountable, you cannot use:
A plural verb
Wrong example: “Recent researches have shown…”
It should instead be: “Recent research has shown…”
A number
Wrong example: “Three advices I would give…”
It should instead be: “Three pieces of advice I would give…”
A few, a couple, many, a number of
Wrong example: “A number of information shows…”
It should instead be: “A lot of information shows…”
Places where the name refers to a group of islands or states: the USA, the UK, the Middle East,
the UAE
Cardinal numbers: the first of day of the month, the second survey shows
Nouns when you are talking about a specific person, place or thing: the government of India, the
river in Calcutta, India, the man across the street has a beard
Nouns where there is only one in the entire world: the internet, the environment, the ozone layer,
the atmosphere
We don‟t use „the‟ before:
Nouns when you are talking generally about more than one. Often here the word converts to a
plural: governments around the world; rivers in India; many men have beards
Common IELTS Mistakes: Task Response
Stronger example: “Many parents today are working longer hours in order to sufficiently
provide for their children, which is having an enormous impact on the amount available time for
face to face communication.”
Weak example: “Even if employees engage in their jobs for a long time, they often fail to climb
the business ladder, which is regularly the most common goal, therefore, they must face the
harsh reality of staying in the same position for years.”
Stronger example: “Even if employees stay in one job for a long time, they will often fail to climb
the business ladder.”
Not Using Linking Phrases
To make your sentences coherent and cohesive, you must use linking words and phrases. Don‟t
just list sentences, connect them together!
Weak example: “Mexicans will prefer Madrid as their most visited city. Americans will most
likely go to Paris. Canadians love traveling to Istanbul the most.”
Stronger example (linking phrases are bolded): “To begin with, Mexicans will prefer Madrid as
their most visited city. In contrast, Americans will most likely go to Paris. Lastly, Canadians
love traveling to Istanbul the most.”
In vs. On
When to use the preposition IN or ON can be very challenging for ESL students. Here are a few
basic guidelines:
IN is used to:
indicate that something is positioned on a surface or just above or outside an area: “The coffee
cup is sitting on the desk.”
refer to days and dates that are not enclosed with a specific time: “I visited your restaurant on 29
June.”
refer to street name locations: “The restaurant is located on Lakeview Drive.”
Common IELTS Mistakes: Lexical Resource
Stronger example: “Recent research conducted by Harvard University shows that 65% of
Americans work more than 50 hours a week.”
More Advice:
This is an easy mistake to make, so let‟s take a closer look at the band descriptors to see why
paragraphing is so important.
Writing Task 2 must be written in an essay format using paragraphs to break up your ideas. This
will help to structure your essay in a way that is easy to understand. You should not use
headings, bullet points or numbers.
Introduction
Body paragraphs
Conclusion
Take time to read the question carefully and decide how many parts are in the question. Let‟s
take a look at the question below. You are asked to discuss two viewpoints and give your own
opinion.
So to fully address the question, you need to discuss view 1 and view 2 in separate
paragraphs and finally, give your own opinion.
If you fail to answer all parts of the question, your essay will be incomplete.
Question:
Some people think that wild animals should not be kept in zoos.
Others believe that there are good reasons for having zoos.
If you present an unclear position in Writing Task 2, this can affect your final band score. Make
sure you decide on a position and maintain it throughout your response. If you discuss what
„some‟ people think and what „other‟ people think, you have not yet expressed your opinion.
Make sure the examiner knows what you think.
Spelling plays a major role in written communication, so it is important that you spell correctly.
Remember that computer-delivered IELTS does not have spell-check. A „typo‟ is considered a
spelling error. Why don‟t you turn off „spell-check‟ on your device and then turn it on again after
you complete your essay to see how often you misspell words. Make a list of your common
errors and make sure you learn how to spell them.
teh/ the
adn/ and
tehm/ them
thier/ their
The examiner is looking for memorised language, phrases and clichés. Memorised language is
easy to identify, so use your own words and avoid overused phrases.
Make sure you present a clear position supported by examples from your own life experience.
For example:
Country
Family
Job
Student experience
If you avoid these 7 mistakes, you will be well on your way to a band 7.
5 Common IELTS Coherence & Cohesion Mistakes
By: Shelly
Even though coherence and cohesion makes up 25% of a student‟s score for Writing Task 1 and
Task 2, it is probably the area that most IELTS test-takers overlook in their preparation. Quite
honestly, I am sure that 50% of students aren‟t even sure what the two words mean, let alone
how they affect their band score! So, in today‟s post, I want to look at the 5 most common
IELTS Coherence & Cohesion mistakes and show you how to avoid them.
What is Coherence?
Very simply, coherence is how well your essay is organised and how easily it can
be understood by the reader. Is your essay divided into clear paragraphs? Do your ideas
progress and build upon one another throughout your essay? Could a well-educated native
speaker read your essay and understand your sentences easily? Yes? Great – then you have good
coherence!
What is Cohesion?
If coherence is how easy an essay is to read, then cohesion is how well your ideas are
connected. Do you have clear topic sentences that tell the reader the main idea in each of your
paragraphs? Do you use transition signals to show the relationships between your ideas? Do you
use referencing and substitution to replace key nouns that are repeated? Yes? Great – then you
have great cohesion!
So, if this is what coherence and cohesion are, how do students go wrong in the test? Well,
truthfully, in many ways, but here are the 5 that I see most often when I am marking.
One of the main criteria in the band descriptors for IELTS Coherence & Cohesion is having a
clear central topic in each paragraph. The way to signal to the examiner what the main idea in
your paragraph is to start with a sentence that clearly states what you are going to discuss i.e. the
topic sentence. Now, when I was teaching English for Academic Purposes in universities, I
would tell students that it didn‟t matter where in the paragraph the topic sentence came – it could
be at the beginning, the middle, or the end, you just had to have one! However, for IELTS, I
strongly recommend that you always START your paragraph with the topic sentence.
1. If you know what the main topic is going to be before you start writing, you are much
more likely to stick to that topic throughout the paragraph.
2. IELTS examiners are marking your essay according to the band descriptors. Why make
them “hunt” or “search” for your topic, or make them question if you have one? Show
them from the beginning what you are going to discuss so that they can relax and get on
with assessing the other aspects of your essay.
So, what does a good topic sentence look like? Well, that will depend on the type of essay you
are writing.
If you are writing a paragraph that contains TWO ideas i.e. a discuss both sides essay, a
problem / solution essay, or an advantages / disadvantages essay then you just need a
GENERAL topic sentence that lets the examiner know the main idea of the paragraph. That‟s
because you are giving two ideas that are united by the general purpose. For example:
On the one hand, it could be argued that sportsmen‟s salaries are too high (e.g. this paragraph
will contain two reasons why some people think this)
On the one hand, there are several factors that lead to a person being obese (e.g. this paragraph
will contain two causes)
On the one hand, there are a number of advantages to working from home (e.g. this paragraph
will contain two advantages)
However, if you are writing a paragraph that contains ONE main idea i.e. a to what extent essay,
or a positive /negative development essay, then we have to express the main argument in the
topic sentence:
First, removing parks from cities would result in an increase in pollution. (e.g. this paragraph
will discuss the first reason for my position = pollution)
The first negative is that private tutors are costly. (e.g. this paragraph will discuss the first
negative = cost)
Top Tip for Topic Sentences
Before you write any paragraph, ask yourself the simple question “What is the main topic of this
paragraph?” The answer will be your topic sentence.
Transition signals are words like “in addition” or “however” or “therefore” that are used to show
the relationship between the ideas in your essay. I think many students believe that your whole
score for coherence and cohesion is decided upon your use of transition signals alone (which we
now know is not true), so they develop one of the following problems:
Weaker students often use transition signals between every sentence in their essay (First,
Secondly, Moreover, Finally) Often, this is because they are not able to show the relationship
between their ideas in other ways like using a complex sentence or referencing. Also, it can be a
sign that a student is not developing their ideas enough (if you are describing each of your
arguments in one sentence, you are not expanding and supporting them enough to achieve a high
score for Task Response). The best illustration of this is students who use a transition signal
directly after their topic sentence:
Firstly, I believe that children should be taught in mixed classes. In addition, this will help them
to learn how to socialise with the other sex.
Do you see the problem? The topic sentence has told us the main idea (well done!), so how can
you use “in addition” after it? Are you going to add a second main idea?!!!! No! You don‟t need
any transition here! So, don‟t use transition signals mechanically at the start of every sentence!
2. Use of “fake” transition signals
Because weaker students think that these transition signals are the key to achieving a high
coherence and cohesion score, they also wrongly think that if they can “invent” some clever,
unusual, rarely used transition signal, they will get bonus points from the examiner. They won‟t!
The fact is that these cohesive devices are standard expressions that have been used for literally
centuries. While some slang may come and go, transition signals never change, and trying to use
a “new” one will only damage your score not increase it. Here are some of my “favourite” fake
transitions (and to be clear, when I say “favourite”, I mean the absolute worst!).
Top Tip for Transition Signals – Don‟t use any of these phrases!
To embark with, / To commence with,
On the one side / On the flip side
To recapitulate / By way of a conclusion
Having progression in an essay is massively important for your coherence and cohesion score.
But, what is progression? Well, very simply it means that your essay should feel like it is always
moving forward. Every paragraph should tell me something new and be logically sequenced. It‟s
interesting to me that almost every IELTS forum is full of questions about how to “organise the
paragraphs” in an essay, but never about how to organise the sentences in a paragraph. Nobody
seems to care that their sentences progress, even though this is much harder than learning a
simple “template of an essay”. So, let me show you what progression is by showing you a
paragraph that has almost none:
Can you see the problem? Read the first sentence of that paragraph. What does it tell us? Fast
food causes obesity. Now read the rest of the paragraph. Does it tell us anything new? NO!!!! All
it does is give me the same information again and again in different words!!! This is a paragraph
that does not progress. When you write your essay, every sentence should add something new or
more convincing to your argument. This is an extreme example, but it is a problem I see time and
time again. Compare that paragraph with this one that DOES progress.
Can you see the difference? Every sentence here added something more to my argument – this is
progression! This is also why learning a “template” is not a good idea!!! Most templates rely
heavily on repeating one idea again and again – examiners are well-trained and spot this
repetition.
4. Unclear referencing
Students with good cohesion are able to use referencing to avoid repeating words. They do this
by using pronouns like “they” and “it”, or determiners like “this” and “these” to replace words
that have previously appeared in the sentence. Referencing is a key academic writing skill and if
you don‟t use it, it will be hard for you to achieve more than a 6.0 for Task Response. However,
the problem I see most often is not students not using referencing at all, but students using
referencing poorly. Every time you use a pronoun to replace a word, it must be 100% clear
which word you are referring back to. However, even very high-level students can have
problems here. Take this sentence for example
Can you see the problem? Read it again. Tell me, who does “them” refer to here? The crops, the
cows or the humans??? It is NOT clear and so this is faulty referencing! If the reader of your
essay cannot tell immediately what your pronoun or determiner refers to, you need to write your
sentence again to make it clearer!
5. Parts of the essay cannot be understood
This is the most basic requirement of coherence. The examiner needs to understand your
essay with ease if you want to achieve a 7.0 or higher. So, you would imagine that most students
would do everything they could to make sure that their sentences are clear and easy to read,
right? Wrong! They do the opposite!!! I‟m serious. Almost every student who comes to me for
help is so obsessed with using “high-level vocabulary” that they end up writing sentences I can‟t
read because they are full of such strange synonyms and weird paraphrasing. My advice here is
simple – use the word that best conveys your message. Don‟t think of that word and then look in
a thesaurus for the longest possible synonym. Trust me, examiners love essays that are easy to
read!
1. No clear topic sentences – tell the examiner what the main idea in your paragraph will
be in the first sentence
2. Poor use of transition signals – don‟t use them between every sentence in a paragraph
3. No progression – every sentence in your essay should add something more to your
argument
4. Poor referencing – it is great to reference, but it should always be clear what a pronoun
refers to
5. Parts of the essay cannot be understood – don‟t let bad paraphrasing destroy your C&C
score!