IELTS – Typical IELTS’ Students’ Grammar Mistakes

There are many IELTS students out there who are asking why aren’t I getting my IELTS Band 7 in the Writing Section?

Why no band 7 in IELTS Writing?

A proven approach to helping you in your acquisition of a Band 7 in the IELTS Writing Test.

One very important reason is that if you are letting any of the following basic grammar mistakes into your writing, you are going to stop your IELTS grammar Band at 6 and maybe lower, depending on the accuracy of the other areas of your IELTS. Whatever I tell you about in this article also applies to your IELTS speaking exam, too.

A little Test

Line graph show people who visited Art Gallery Pavilion Pier Festival in Brighton
in percentages between 1980 and 2010.
Generally Pavilion was most popular and Pier lest popular.
One of most important feature is Pier which reach peak of almost 50% in 1995 and fall to 30% in 2010.
Art Gallery was more popular than Pier at begining of period (21% and 10% respectively)but Art Gallery figures falls dramatically to just under 10% in 2010 while Pier had a unusual rise in 20% at this time.

Advice

When you practise at home or in the actual exam, you should train yourself to look at your writing quickly when you’ve finished, to see if you’ve made any basic grammar errors that will stop your score in the grammar column being higher than 6.

Look at the paragraph above and the 7 areas of basic grammar to think about below and check the paragraph for errors. The corrected paragraph is at the bottom of this article.

This will help you to do so with your own writing, allowing you to improve your accuracy quickly with practice.
5 areas of basic grammar to think about

1. Use of Articles

This is a basic general approach to the use of articles, which will be enough for you to improve your accuracy in this area, without studying very hard.

a) Zero Article (no article)/plural nouns

You don’t use any articles (zero article) if you are talking generally about a topic from the question and when you talk generally about a topic the nouns are plural and also don’t need an article. The exception to this is if the noun is uncountable.

e.g. Governments (Plural and countable) noun everywhere should do their best for their constituents.

e.g. Technology(Uncountable noun and singular) is necessary in all walks of life today.

Certain expressions with plural nouns

One of many reasonS is that it is too expensive. (One of + plural noun)

b) THE (The definite article)

When you begin to focus on one point in your general idea or become more specific, you use THE.

e.g. However, the government in Britain does not always do its best for the British constituents.

When you use a superlative expression ( The + adjective + est/ The + most + adjective)

e.g. The most common mistake in IELTS writing is the biggest.

c) A/AN (indefinite article)

When you are talking about one thing, you use A before a consonant and AN before a voweland this might be an adjective or a noun.

e.g. An example of this is a teenager who has been brought up on an estate.

2. Prepositions

When you are learning new verbs and phrases, don’t forget to learn the verb pattern or the preposition that goes with them, or you’ll lose serious marks in the grammar column.

e.g. I would love to do that – would love + infinitive
e.g. I don’t mind helping him – mind + ing form (gerund)
e.g. It depends on the person (to depend on something)

3. Correct Verb ending/verb tense

a) This mistake often happens in the Academic writing task 1 but can also happen in task 2, as well.

(remember to use third person singular – s in the present simple)
The graph showS a decline in the number of tourists.

(third person plural present simple – no s)
The graphs show this.

b) If you’re talking about an activity in the past, with a past time, then don’t forget to use the past tense.

In 2010, figures fell to almost half.

4. Punctuation

a) Remember to use a full stop at the end of your sentence and follow this by a capital letter at the beginning of your new sentence.

e.g. Pollution is an enormous global problem today. This is something that needs to be addressed.

You should think about this especially if you choose to do your writing task in capitals because if you don’t put the full stop, the examiner won’t know that you are aware of the rules for punctuation.

b) If you make a list of things, separate each by a comma, with the final noun joined by ‘and’.

e.g. There are various ways to do this, like eating, exercising and watching your weight.

c) Remember when you are using linking words or expressions, these are separated by commas.

e.g. Although football is interesting, other sports are better.

d) When you use a conditional if the conditional word starts the sentence, don’t forget to separate the 2 ideas by a comma.

e.g. If this is done,everyone will benefit.
Everyone will benefit if this is done.

5. Spelling

See the list of typical IELTS Students’ spelling mistakes and the rules to correct these.

A Little Test (Corrected)

Here are the answers. How good were you at spotting the typical grammar mistakes that will stop you getting higher than band 6?

THE line graph showS people who visited THE Art Gallery, THE Pavilion, THE Pier AND THE Festival in Brighton in percentages between 1980 and 2010.
Generally, THE Pavilion was THE most popular and THE Pier THE leAst popular.
One of most important featureS is THE Pier, which reachED A peak of almost 50% in 1995 and fEll to 30% in 2010.
THE Art Gallery was more popular than THE Pier at THE beginNing of THE period (21% and 10% respectively)but THE Art Gallery figures fEllX dramatically to just under 10% in 2010, while THE Pier had aN unusual rise TO 20% at this time.
Finally, use this list every time you write to check your accuracy, until you are ready to go confidently into the IELTS exam.

Kick-start your IELTS Preparation. Stop making mistakes which lose you marks and learn how to earn more marks.