Grammar tips for IELTS – easy things you can do to improve your score

Grammar tips for IELTS

Top two things in grammar that you must be good at to get a good score in IELTS:
1. Prepositions
prepositions are important everywhere but in the IELTS context they are particularly important as a section of the listening module usually has a picture or map and the audio has a lot to do with prepositions.
2. Verb tense

Easy IELTS grammar tips that you can use instantly to improve your writing, speaking and even listening score. The biggest errors are in sentence structures. We’ll discuss one great solution to bad sentence structures here.
It is to see if your sentence follows certain pattern like S+V+O, verb tense agreement..

S = Subject (usually a noun, pronoun or a gerund)
V = Verb
O = object and everything else.

First check if your sentence has a subject. It could sometimes be more than just a word, here’s an example:

Wrong: Play football is good for health.
Correct: Playing football is good for health.

Wrong: School which is near my home.
Corect: School which is near my home is a big one.

“School which is near my home” is the subject here and the sentence needs to be complete, so add a verb.

Use this S+V+O and its variations like SSV, SVV, etc, you’ll be surprised by the number of errors you can identify. One of the reasons students don’t get a good score is because they are not able to identify errors.

Verb tense can totally change the meaning of your sentence – 2nd Grammar tips for IELTS

Be well versed with the usage of tenses. Broadly you need to know where to use what tense.

Important: learn how to use tenses and do the exercise at the end of this article.

Present simple: Use this tense when you talk about things in general, facts, states and repetitive actions.
Subject + base verb
Wrong: I working as a doctor.
Correct: I’m a doctor/I work as a doctor.

Present continuous: Use this when you are talking about a continuing action and now.
How to use present continuous tense: Subject + verb+ing
Wrong: At the moment I watch TV
Correct: At the moment I’m watching TV.

Present perfect: Use this when talking about a completed action related to the present and experiences.
How to use present perfect tense: Subject + have/has+ past participle.
Wrong: I go to New Zealand once.
Correct: I’ve visited New Zealand.

Present perfect continuous: Use this when talking about an action or a state that began in the past but may not have finished yet.
How to use present perfect continuous tense: Subject + have/has + been + verb+ing

Wrong: I have live in this city since 20 years
Correct: I have been living in this city since 1996.

Past simple: Use this to talk about past actions usually with a time reference.
How to use past simple tense: Subject + past veb

Wrong: I go shopping last week.
correct: I went shopping last week.

Past continuous: use this to talk about actions that were continuing in the past.
how to use past continuous tense: subject + was/were + verb+ING