Higher band score in IELTS is key to dreams for people aspiring to migrate to foreign countries. The migration can be for studies or permanent residency with the help of a job. Our institute has been helping people in achieving higher scores in their IELTS exams.
The below article will help people who are preparing for IELTS exam. It will be helpful in improving the score for IELTS writing task 1 vocabulary and grammar. Before we start we would like to inform you that the IELTS Writing assessment marking scheme has been divided into below four parts.
• Grammatical Range and Accuracy
• Task Achievement
• Lexical Resource
• Coherence and Cohesion
The grammar range and accuracy mark’s share is 25 percent of the total IELTS Writing test score.
Test Aspirant is tested on below two things:
• Aspirant’s capability to use a wide range of grammar structures in their sentences.
• Aspirant’s capability to produce grammatically accurate sentences while writing.
People usually are fine in speaking English, but they struggle with their grammar and if the person struggles while writing their grammatical assessment in IELTS, it can surely lower their score.
Grammatical Accuracy.
While judging examiners check how many “errorless” sentences the aspirant has written. Keeping this in mind the aspirant must make sure that each sentence they write should not have any error in them. Even a small error can lead to lower marks.
Therefore, we advise all the IELTS exam aspirants that they should perform a thorough check post completing the test and before moving to the next level in the exam. Small mistakes that can lower the score can be corrected with the final check.
Range of Grammar.
A correct answer will have a range of correctly formed structures with the right tenses. Many people tend to form complex sentences and insert wrong tenses in their sentences. This is a bad practice which only results in errors and nothing more.
If the aspirant uses simple structures of simple words and tenses, the possibility of errors reduces to a significant margin.
Please refer to our below advice on several grammar structures that will help test aspirant’s score in the IELTS exam, while used correctly. We have tried to explain charts, like pie charts, bar charts and bar charts. We will share another article on the process diagram.
Describing trends.
In the IELTS writing task, 1 aspirant will have to explain trends in the form of charts. The question might come in any form of charts or it might be asked to compare the two different charts.
Below are the grammatical structures that can be used to explain the trends.
1. There + be + adj. + noun + in + noun phrase
Example:
There has been a sharp drop in the prices of fruits like grapes and Mangoes.
There was a gradual rise in the pollution post-Diwali.
Possible adjectives
• gradual
• moderate
• modest
• sharp
• dramatic
• slight
• steep
• steady
• significant
• considerable
• rapid
Possible nouns:
• variation
• decline
• decrease
• dip
• drop
• fall
• peak
• fluctuation
• growth
• increase
• rise
• slump
2. Noun phrase + verb + adverb
Example:
The price of oil rose gradually.
The price of oil has risen dramatically.
Possible verbs:
• rise
• jump
• grow
• climb
• increase
• rocket
• fall
• drop
• decline
• decrease
• go down
• plummet
• plunge
Possible adverbs:
• gradually
• moderately
• modestly
• sharply
• dramatically
• slightly
• steeply
• steadily
• significantly
• considerably
• rapidly
• slowly
Describing Increases and Decreases
While describing the charts in the writing assessment task 1, test aspirant might have to explain increases and decreases in the trends. Below are the three main ways to describe the trends.
• Noun phrase + verb + adverb
Example:
With the increasing pollution, the demand for diesel cars has fallen sharply.
After the launch iPhone 11, iPhone 10 prices dropped dramatically.
2. There + be + noun + in + noun phrase
Example:
With the right measures, pollution can fall to low levels.
There has been an increase in the cost of coffee.
3. Using fractions
Example:
The price of onion halved in less than a year.
The price of onion has halved since summers.
By summers, the price of onion has halved.
Making Comparisons
The writing assessment task 1 at times needs aspirants to make comparisons between two times, groups, places, regions or any type of data source. Below are some examples that can be used to make comparisons without any errors.
1. More/few/less + noun + than
Example:
At the time of the odd-even scheme in Delhi, more people chose public transport than taxis.
2. of one syllable -er + than
Example:
At the time of the odd-even scheme in Delhi, A higher number of people chose public transport than taxis.
3. More/less + adj. of more than one syllable + than
Example:
At the time of odd-even scheme in Delhi, Public transport was in high demands when compared to taxis.
4. of one syllable -est.
Example:
At the time of the odd-even scheme in Delhi, The highest % of commuters chose public transport.
5. The most/least + adj. of more than one syllable.
Example:
At the time of the odd-even scheme in Delhi, the least popular mode of transport were taxis.
Summarising
IELTS writing assessment task 1 is majorly a summarising task. Aspirant’s overview paragraph must include two or three sentences that summarise the main features of the chart. To help you better understand this, here are some short phrases that can be used.
• To summarise, the most marked change is
• Overall, it is clear
• Overall, the majority/minority
• In sum, the most noticeable trend is
Try to avoid “To conclude” in the overview paragraph of comparisons in the Grammar Assessment task 1.
• To summarise, the most marked change is….
• Overall, it is clear….
• Overall, the majority/minority….
• In sum, the most noticeable trend is….
Tenses
Making use of the appropriate tenses in IELTS writing Assessment 1 is really essential if you want to achieve a high band score.
The key to success in forming the right sentences is to look at the title of the graph and the information mentioned on both axes to understand what time frame is used.
This will help the test aspirant understand what tense should they use.
Example:
• If the time is any time in the history/ past, for example, in July 1988, then the aspirant must use past tense.
• If it has projections for the future, for example, 3025, in such cases future tenses should be used.
• It there is no time mentioned, the aspirant can simply make use of the present simple.
Below is a range of tenses that can be utilized in Writing task 1.
Always remember, the tense you will use will depend on the information that is displayed in the chart. Full awareness of all the English tenses will help the IELTS test aspirant achieve the high band in their IELTS test.
1. Present Perfect:
We use the present perfect tense type usually to define any action that happened at an unspecified time interval before now. The exact time frame is not important or if it is not mentioned.
In writing task 1, we use this tense type to describe changes in data that might have occurred over a period of time.
Example
The price of flats in Noida has fallen by 5000 per sq. foot since last year.
2. Present Perfect Continuous
We utilize this tense type to show that something which had started in the past and has continued up until now.
Example
Commercial property prices have been decreasing since last year.
3. Future Perfect
We make use of this tense to state that something will be finished by any point of time in the future.
We generally use it with ‘by’ or ‘in’.
Example
The commercial property prices will reach their all-time high by 2020.
4. Past Simple
We usually use this tense type to describe any action that might have started and finished at a specific time in history.
Example
The price of onion prices rose from INR 30 per kg in Jan 2014 to INR 100 in Jan 2017.
Approximations, Percentages, and Fractions
In many of the IELTS writing assessment task 1 questions, you will have to deal with questions related to percentages.
The prices of property have rose 50%- exactly a half
27%- roughly one quarter
47%- around a half
23%- almost a quarter
77%- approximately three quarters
Proportions
75%- a large proportion
These percentages related questions can surely help the IELTS test aspirant boost their score.
Every test aspirant must remember that they should vary their language as much as possible in order to score high scores in the ‘lexical resource’ part of their assessment.
For instance, use approximations. Like for example. 48% can be used as “nearly a half”.
We have tried to explain some examples of the range that can be used to explain percentages.
Fractions
74%- nearly three quarters
52%- just over a half
48%- just under a half
31%- nearly a third
2%- a tiny fraction
73%- a significant majority
17% a small minority