IELTS grammar rules

The structures examiners mark, each with the errors that recur most and a short revision checklist.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy is one of four equally weighted criteria in both Writing and Speaking, and Lexical Resource is another. That makes grammar half of the language score in the two productive modules. These 12 pages cover the structures that appear in almost every response, with the specific errors examiners see most often.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy

Tenses for describing data and trends

Choose past simple, present simple, present perfect or future forms correctly when describing charts, tables and projections in Writing Task 1.

Writing Task 1 Academic · Writing Task 2 · Speaking Part 3

Complex sentences and subordination

Build accurate complex sentences with subordinate clauses, participle clauses and fronted adverbials to widen your grammatical range.

Writing Task 2 · Writing Task 1 · Speaking Part 3

Articles: a, an, the and the zero article

A practical decision procedure for a, an, the and no article, including the generic plural rule that costs candidates the most marks.

Writing Task 1 · Writing Task 2 · Speaking all parts

Subject-verb agreement

Find the real subject and match the verb, including the traps of long noun phrases, uncountable nouns and quantifier expressions.

Writing Task 1 · Writing Task 2 · Speaking all parts

Conditionals for argument and speculation

Zero, first, second and third conditionals, plus mixed forms, for Task 2 argument and Speaking Part 3 speculation.

Writing Task 2 · Speaking Part 3

Relative clauses

Defining and non-defining relative clauses, comma rules, which versus that, and using which to comment on a whole clause.

Writing Task 1 · Writing Task 2 · Speaking Part 3

The passive voice for processes and formal writing

When the passive is the right choice in Task 1 process diagrams and academic argument, and when it just makes writing vague.

Writing Task 1 Academic · Writing Task 2

Grammatical Range and Accuracy and Lexical Resource

Comparatives, superlatives and comparison language

Accurate comparison structures for charts and arguments, including twice as many, the same as, and the degree adverbs that qualify them.

Writing Task 1 · Writing Task 2 · Speaking Part 3

Lexical Resource and Grammatical Range and Accuracy

Prepositions for data, time and place

The prepositions that IELTS actually tests: rise of versus rise to, increase in, at, on, in for time, and verbs that take no preposition.

Writing Task 1 · Writing Task 2 · Speaking all parts

Lexical Resource

Collocation and precise word choice

Why natural word partnerships raise Lexical Resource more than rare vocabulary, and how to avoid thesaurus errors.

Writing Task 1 · Writing Task 2 · Speaking all parts

Coherence and Cohesion

Cohesive devices and referencing

Why over-using linking words lowers Coherence and Cohesion, and how referencing, substitution and topic sentences do the work instead.

Writing Task 1 · Writing Task 2 · Speaking Part 2 and 3

Grammatical Range and Accuracy and Coherence and Cohesion

Punctuation that affects your band

Comma splices, fronted adverbials, semicolons, apostrophes and the however trap: the punctuation errors examiners actually mark.

Writing Task 1 · Writing Task 2