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Whether you like it or not, grammar is crucial to both IELTS Writing and Speaking because grammar range and accuracy is the criterion that makes up 25% of your score. Obviously, you have to avoid making mistakes while writing and speaking to the examiner. Otherwise, it will be quite difficult and unlikely for you to achieve a higher band. We have selected the most frequent mistakes candidates make on the IELTS exam, and we will also suggest how to mend them.
Some mistakes can be made because of the influence of your mother tongue while others crop up regardless of the language you speak as the first language, and students around the world have these common issues. What are they?
This is a very common mistake even upper-intermediate and advanced students make in their speaking and writing. However, it’s a very basic one and very noticeable. What is considered to be a subject-verb agreement mistake?
WRONG: A person I really admire is my friend Randy. He live in Thailand and he work as a teacher, and he also run a travel blog.
CORRECT: A person I really admire is my friend Randy. He lives in Thailand and he works as a teacher, and he also runs a travel blog.
Don’t forget to add ‘s’ in Present Simple, when talking about ‘he’, ‘she’ or ‘it’ as well as change ‘have’ to ‘has’ for the 3rd person singular.
WRONG: There are two possible solutions. Each have its advantages and disadvantages.
CORRECT: There are two possible solutions. Each has its advantages and disadvantages.
Remember pronouns that always take a singular verb:
each, either, neither, one, no one, nobody, nothing, anyone, anybody, anything, somebody, something, someone, everyone, everybody everything.
However, there are pronouns that always take a plural verb:
both, few, many, several.
For example:
There are two possible solutions. Both have advantages and disadvantages.
WRONG: One of my friends are coming to visit me on holiday.
CORRECT: One of my friends is coming to visit me on holiday.
You should remember that the verb agrees with the subject, i.e. the quantity, as in:
Two of my friends are coming to visit me on holiday.
However, for some quantity phrases you have to pay attention to the noun in the prepositional phrase to decide if the verb is singular or plural:
A lot of people (plural) cycle to work.
A lot of sugar (uncountable) is not healthy.
All of the numbers (plural) are rising insignificantly.
All of the food (uncountable) is homemade and fresh.
Some of the adults (plural) travel to work by car.
Some of the local food (uncountable) is very spicy.
One-fourth of the commuters (plural) drive to work.
One-fourth of the space (uncountable) is occupied by freelancers.
Here are the pronouns that take a singular or a plural verb: some, all, any, most, a lot.
WRONG: The number of bicycles which were stolen remain stable.
CORRECT: The number of bicycles which were stolen remains stable.
In your writing or speaking, you can use relative clauses or prepositional phrases to give more information, and thus separate the subject and the verb in the sentence. What happens then is that candidates in such cases often forget about the subject of the sentence and use the wrong number of the verb. Do not agree the last noun in the phrase or clause with the verb. Make sure you agree the verb with the subject of the sentence.
READ ABOUT: How to work on your IELTS grammar
This often happens in the Speaking section of the exam, particularly in Part 2 where you are often asked to describe some past events or experiences. For example:
“I’m going to tell you about an achievement that I am very proud of. It’s pretty recent so I can still distinctly remember lots of details and my own impressions related to it. It is just a couple of months ago when my boyfriend and I go to Bali on holiday and it is my long-cherished and also long-delayed dream to try scuba diving.”
Why does this happen? More often than not it is the problem lies in forgetting. The thing is that in IELTS Speaking candidates become so focused on their vocabulary, pronunciation, and demonstrating their fluency that they forget about using proper grammar.
How can you fix it? Practice before the exam, record yourself. It’s a good idea to only focus on using the past tenses. Remember, that in the second part of the exam, you are often asked to talk about past experiences. So, when you’re given a card with the task, read it carefully, and while planning your answer, think about grammar you’re going to use to give a response.
Another very common mistake is using Past Simple instead of Present Perfect and vice versa.
WRONG: Over the last 10 years, the number of bicycle commuters increased dramatically.
CORRECT: Over the last 10 years, the number of bicycle commuters has increased dramatically.
WRONG: There have been considerable fluctuations in the number of bike commuters between 2002 and 2005.
CORRECT: There were considerable fluctuations in the number of bike commuters between 2002 and 2005.
The rule is very simple. If we are talking about events that started and finished in the past, e.g. between 2002 and 2005, we use Past Simple. If we are talking about something that started in the past but continues until the present or something that happened in the past but the result is in the present (e.g. “over the last ten years” means that it started 10 years ago and the results are related to present), use Present Perfect.
READ ABOUT: How to organize your responses on the IELTS speaking exam?
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Have a look at the following example sentence taken from the cause and effect essay:
Many people think we use ‘will’ for the future, and they are right, but not most of the time.
CORRECT: If ice continues to melt, many species will become extinct.
The part of the sentence that starts with ‘if’ is the condition. The main clause says. ‘many species will become extinct’, and these are the things to happen.
The rule for 1st Conditional is: If+Present Simple, will+verb.
For example:
OR
Will+verb if+Present Simple:
Put a comma after if-clause and before the main clause.
When you imagine a situation, use a different type of conditional:
If+Past Simple, would/could/might/should+verb.
For example:
We have looked at the most common mistakes made even by advanced learners. Remember, the more you practice, the better your grammar becomes. The good news, you still have time to prepare for IELTS and you can do it thoroughly by taking our online IELTS preparation course.
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Needless to say, correct punctuation gives the right meaning to the sentence, and its wrong placement can totally change the meaning. How many punctuation marks are there in English? Period, comma, apostrophe, quotation, question, exclamation, brackets, braces, parenthesis, dash, hyphen, ellipsis, colon, semicolon! However, you don’t need to use all of them at the exam. Following the correct usage will make your IELTS writing look more appealing and easier to read.
Punctuation also influences your score. If you don’t use it properly or forget to use some punctuation marks, it will count as a grammatical mistake. Remember, grammar range and accuracy make up 25% of your score. So, it’s better to avoid making any grammatical mistakes in your IELTS Writing. In today’s blog post, we are looking at different types and proper use of punctuation for your IELTS essays and reports. Make sure you remember all of them and practise using them during your IELTS preparation.
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At the end of sentences to mark a sentence’s grammatical end. For example:
At the end of abbreviations, such as Mr., Ms., etc., and so on.
You should place the period right after the last letter of the last word in the sentence and leave some space between the period and the first letter of the first word of the next sentence. It might look obvious, but many candidates don’t do this. Start the next sentence with the capital letter.
Using abbreviations in IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 and Task 2 is not a good idea. Instead, write the words out. The exception is for symbols like % and $ which you should use, as they are faster to write and very commonly used, even in formal writing. For example:
In contractions to show that letters are missing, e.g. I’m, it’s, they’ll, who’s. DO NOT use them in IELTS Academic writing. Short forms are too informal:
In possessions to indicate ownership. For example:
READ ABOUT: How to work on your IELTS grammar
To separate items in a list. For example:
To separate clauses by ‘and’ or ‘but’ if they have different subjects. For example:
When the subordinate clause goes before the main clause. For example:
When the clauses give extra, non-essential information:
When subordinate clauses or non-finite comment phrases give additional information. For example:
To introduce lists:
When the second sentence explains or justifies the first sentence:
Use single quotation marks to draw attention to a word:
To refer to titles of the books, newspapers, magazines, films, songs, poems, videos, CDs, etc.
To mark the beginning of the sentence.
For proper nouns: personal names, brand names, nationalities and languages, days of the week and months, public holidays and geographical places no matter where they fall in a sentence.
For titles of books, magazines, newspapers, plays, music, e.g. ‘Oliver Twist’, The Guardian.
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Grammar mistakes can destroy your score not only in IELTS writing but in IELTS Listening and Speaking as well. This means it is pretty important to write correctly because if you make even little errors, you are unlikely to get more than 6 or 7. Grammatical range and accuracy make up 25% of your score for writing and speaking. Work on your grammar during your IELTS preparation, and get the desired score in 5 easy steps.
There are many key concepts of grammar different candidates might need to improve: tenses, subject-verb agreement, articles, conditional sentences, etc. As many students as many problems there are to be fixed. The majority of those who prepare for and take IELTS, have issues with 1-3 areas of English grammar. That’s why one needs to identify those in order to find out what needs to be improved.
For example, if you have difficulties with punctuation, it might reduce the score for your writing. Or if you are not good at using tenses, you are likely to fail both writing and speaking.
The simplest way to find out what problems you have is to do this with a teacher, a tutor or any high-level learner of English, etc. Share your writing with them and ask them to give you feedback on your grammar. It is likely that any devoted teacher of English would be willing to help you and make a contribution to your IELTS preparation.
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This can be compared to learning the traffic regulations and road signs. Grammar rules are the laws of the English language which is the ball of roads and streets with different signs and directions. Grammar rules show us how the language works and in what directions we should or shouldn’t go. If one doesn’t know the rules which run the problematic area of grammar, he or she will never be able to use that grammar.
Luckily, there are many resources to study grammar such as websites, coursebooks, etc. Pick up the topic you find problematic, read about it, and learn the examples.
READ ABOUT: 6 best ways of getting vocabulary for IELTS
Learning and knowing the rules of grammar is good, but understanding them better and integrating them into your writing and speaking is impossible without practice. After you have read the rule, learned the examples, you have to practice applying them, i.e. master your accuracy and then fluency.
Before you actually learn to drive, you study a lot of theory and road signs. You also do typical exercises with your driving instructor to train your muscle memory. And only after you stop thinking about how the clutch works and start doing it automatically, you are allowed to drive. When you drive for the first time, you might feel stressed and confused with many cars around you, traffic lights, and all the road signs. But the more you practice, the more confident you become. The same with grammar: learn the rules, study examples, notice new grammar in reading passages or listening, do a lot of exercises, commit some mistakes, analyse, fix.
After you have worked out by doing grammar exercises, it’s time to produce your own sentences. If you know the rules, but do not use them in your oral communication or writing, you are losing them, and your grammar doesn’t improve. Practice using the grammatical structures in your speaking or writing. For example, when planning your answer in IELTS Speaking, it is a good idea to think about what grammar you are going to use. If the examiner asks you about your future plans, make sure you use Present Continuous, be going to, will, or Present Simple, probably 1st Conditional. If you are writing an essay, you will have to use complex sentences in order to achieve a higher score. When you are doing that, be conscious about using proper grammar.
You can record yourself speaking or keep your writing in order to do the next step.
How do you know that you are using grammar you have learned correctly? Of course, it would be great if you could ask for some feedback from your teacher, for example. The teacher will tell you if you are using the correct sentence structures and if you have anything else to fix. You will learn a lot from the feedback you receive and still will be able to improve. Moreover, you can use this system not only to hone your grammar skills but also other areas of IELTS.
As you can see, it is not complicated and it is very effective, that is why we have created a fully online IELTS preparation course based on this concept. Its main focus is practice, detailed analysis of all types of IELTS Academic writing, reading, listening tasks, automated instant IELTS score on writing using artificial intelligence, step-by-step guidance, feedback on your writing and speaking, online lessons with certified teachers, full mock Speaking and Writing tests with detailed feedback from IELTS preparation experts.
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