IELTS Grammar: 'for example' and 'such as' Students often make mistakes when using these two

phrases. To avoid mistakes, follow this simple advice: - Use For example, at the start of a sentence. - Use such as in the middle of a sentence. Compare these examples: 1. Children should eat less junk food. For example, they should avoid eating burgers and chips. 2. Children should avoid eating junk food such as burgers and chips. Notice that 'For example' is followed by a comma and a full sentence. 'Such as' is in the middle of the sentence, followed by two nouns. You can use 'For instance' instead of 'For example'. You can use 'like' instead of 'such as'. IELTS Grammar: rules and exceptions When learning a language, grammar rules are useful because they show you how the language normally behaves. For example, you might learn that the word "to" is followed by the infinitive of the verb. The rule tells you that "to have" is correct and "to having" is wrong. However, you should also be prepared to meet some exceptions to the grammar rules that you learn. For example, students are often confused by phrases like 'look forward to having' or 'advantages to having', both of which are correct. When you find an exception to a grammar rule, don't get frustrated; consider it an opportunity to expand your knowledge of the language, and perhaps to impress the examiner! IELTS Grammar: correct the mistakes Try to improve the following sentences. 1. It is clear that, the commuter numbers by car are dominant. 2. The number of passengers in train showed upward trend. 3. The number of commuters favor car and train significantly increase. 4. About average 5 million commuters traveled by car. 5. The figure for train started from about 2 millions. 6. British people continuously used more car than other vehicles. IELTS Grammar: opinion + conditional Try this useful technique for IELTS writing and speaking: Give an opinion, then follow it with a conditional sentence. Look at these examples: 1. In my opinion, governments should invest more money in public transport. If rail and bus services were more reliable, fewer peoplewould need to drive. 1|Page

2. Schools have an important role to play in children's health. If schoolsbanned junk food, they would help to reduce the problem of childhood obesity. 3. In the future I think more people will do their shopping online. But ifInternet shopping becomes more popular, many traditional shops will lose customers. I've underlined the conditionals. Examples 1 and 2 are second conditionals, while 3 uses the first conditional. Practice: Prepare your own "opinion + conditional" ideas for different topics. Having a few of these ideas ready could help you in the writing and speaking tests. IELTS Grammar: 'finally' or 'at last'? This week I wrote a lesson about using "Firstly, Secondly, Finally", and a student asked me whether it's ok to use "at last" instead of "finally". The answer is no. "Finally" and "at last" are not used in the same way. Use "finally" in the IELTS writing test when you want to make your final point, or to talk about the final stage in a process e.g. Finally, as well as making life more fun and interesting, new experiences can be good for our physical and mental health. (taken from this lesson) Only use "at last" when you have been waiting for a long time for something to happen e.g. At last I've passed the IELTS exam! IELTS Grammar: correct the mistakes Try to correct the mistakes in the sentences below: 1. Most of advertising aim to persuade people that buying things will make them happier. 2. Advertisers use every efforts to make their products more attractive. 3. Governments should control advertising or even banned. I'll give you my answers in the "comments" area tomorrow. IELTS Grammar: affect or effect? Almost every week I see mistakes in the use of "affect" and "effect". These are common and important words, especially in the IELTS writing test, so you need to get them right. "Affect" is a verb. Don't write "affect on".
Smoking affects your health. (smoking affects on your health) The Internet is affecting our way of life. Children are affected by what they see on television.

"Effect" is a noun. Do write "have an effect on".

Smoking has a harmful effect on your health. The Internet is having a significant effect on our way of life.

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 Television can have a negative effect on children.

If you use these words correctly, the examiner will be impressed. IELTS Grammar: simplify to avoid mistakes Try to correct / improve the following sentences by writing them in a simpler way. 1. There is no doubt that the attraction of video games are catching peoples attraction easily. 2. In our world today where technologies bound to run in our daily existence, playing video games plays a vital part to our own society. 3. All RPGs (role-playing games), as the name already suggests, involves the player assuming a character and controlling the entire process and unlock tasks to advance. 4. On the one hand, it is undoubtedly that video games have offered much more benefits to human beings. 5. I personally believe that video games seem to have noxious implications. IELTS Grammar: find the mistakes Find the mistakes in the following sentences. All of the sentences relate to the graph in this lesson. 1. Families who do not have cars have decreased from 1971 to 2007. 2. Households without a car percentage gradually decreased. 3. There is a rise can be noted in the proportion of households with two cars. 4. The number of household with no car were well below 50% in 1971. 5. There were least percentage of household who had three or more cars, but it steadily improved to 5% by 2007. I'll put my answers in the comments area tomorrow. Students' grammar questions Here are a few grammar questions that I've been asked this week: 1. Which is better: "like normal" or "as usual"? You might hear people say "like normal", but it's much better to use "as usual". 2. What do "in order to" and "in terms of" mean? A dictionary will explain the meaning of these phrases. However, it's probably more useful to see some examples of how they are used. A search engine like Google will give you many more examples than I can. 3. Is it correct to write "it is worth spending maintaining libraries" or "libraries are worth spending"? Neither is correct I'm afraid. I would write: "It is worth spending money to maintain libraries" or "libraries are worth maintaining". 4. Can we put "for example" in the middle of a sentence like this: "There are many environmental problems, for example, people litter everywhere"? 3|Page

The use of "for example" in the sentence above is not correct. To avoid confusion, I'd recommend using "for example" only at the beginning of sentences. Use "such as" in the middle (e.g. There are many environmental problems, such as air pollution). IELTS Grammar: be careful with the 's' Notice where we put the "s" on the end of a word and where we don't:
Thousands of people watched the show. Fifty thousand people watched the show. over a period of ten years over a ten-year period The fish weighed 5 kilos. It was a five kilo fish. The boy is three years old. He is a three-year-old boy.

IELTS Grammar: correct the mistakes Try to correct the mistakes in the following sentences. 1. More proportion of American people in 1970 than in 2000 got married. 2. There are many things easy enough for those young people to do. 3. I am agreed that volunteer work can build up the responsibilities in youngs. 4. Society gets benefitted as the juvenile crime rate reduced. 5. Having a work experience may help to having a job quicker and easier. PS. Nobody answered this question from Monday's reading lesson: If a survey showed that "households spent seven hours a day on transporting themselves and their goods", does this mean that it was "a survey of household expenditure on transport"? IELTS Grammar: correct the mistakes Here are some sentences about this week's writing task 1 question. Can you find and correct the mistakes? Not all of them are grammar mistakes! 1. There were 51 million pmt incidents than 35 million pmt injuries by bus. 2. In general, both the figures for serious fatalities and injuries were dramatically higher for the demand response field. 3. The number of people having injuries showed the more popular level than that of people having incidents. 4. There is a somewhat difference between the number of people using heavy rail and light rail. 5. The bar chart illustrates the amount of passengers who were been incidents and injuries travelled by five types of transport such as demand response, bus, heavy rail, light rail, and commuter rail in 2002. 4|Page

6. The bus, which is used by almost 80 people, tallied 66 injuries. 7. In three types of rail, being lower than light rail, heavy rail surpassed commuter rail in the amount of incidents and injuries. 8. Injuries by bus was went up approximately 4 times than commuter rail. IELTS Grammar: cause and effect Here are some useful phrases for describing causes and effects (for IELTS Writing Task 2 and maybe Speaking Part 3). I'll use the topic of 'global warming' to show how the phrases work. 1. Cause and Effect Pollution causes global warming. Pollution leads to global warming. Pollution results in global warming. Pollution is the main cause of global warming. Factories pollute the atmosphere. As a result, global warming is occurring. 2. Effect and Cause Global warming is caused by pollution. Global warming is the result of pollution. Global warming is due to pollution. Global warming occurs as a result of pollution. Notice the different uses of 'result' (results in, is the result of, as a result). Students make a lot of mistakes with these phrases. IELTS Grammar: punctuation Here are some simple rules to help you with punctuation for IELTS writing: Full stops Full stops are very important. Put a clear full stop at the end of each sentence, and then begin the next sentence with a capital letter. If you don't do this, you will get a low score. Commas 1. When you start a sentence with these words, put a comma after them: Nowadays, Recently, Firstly, Secondly, Finally, Furthermore, In addition, Also, However, By contrast, On the other hand, In my opinion,... 2. We use commas in lists: e.g. This problem affects individuals, communities and society in general. 3. We don't usually put a comma after the word "that": e.g. It is clear that the rate of immigration increased. 4. Don't worry about other uses of commas. The use of a comma is often optional in other situations.

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Apostrophes Avoid contractions in IELTS writing. Use "do not" instead of "don't". You may sometimes need to show possession e.g. the government's decision. Other punctuation You don't really need to use any other punctuation in IELTS writing. My advice is to avoid trying to use colons and semicolons. IELTS Grammar: verbs with 'exam' A lot of students write to me saying "I gave the IELTS test yesterday". Please note that "give an exam" is not correct. Don't say: - I gave an exam. - I gave the IELTS test. Do say: - I took the IELTS exam/test. - I passed the exam. (i.e. you were successful) In other words, use "take" not "give". IELTS Grammar: 'by/in contrast' and 'on the contrary' A few people have asked me about these phrases recently. Do they have the same meaning? When is each one used? By contrast / In contrast I often use these two phrases in both writing task 1 and 2. They are exactly the same, and are used in a similar way to "however" or "on the other hand" to introduce a contrast / comparison. Put "By / In contrast" at the beginning of a sentence, with a comma after "contrast". Example Unemployment rose in the UK. By contrast, the number of unemployed people in Canada fell. On the contrary I've never used this phrase in any of my IELTS lessons. It doesn't mean the same thing as "by / in contrast". We use "on the contrary" to deny that something is true, and to explain that the opposite is true. Example - Person 1: "You had some problems with your hotel, didn't you?" - Person 2: "On the contrary, the hotel was great, but the airline lost my suitcase." IELTS Grammar: uncountable nouns Students often make mistakes with uncountable nouns. These are nouns that you can't count. Most importantly, they don't have a plural form. For example, you can't say "an information, two informations, many informations". You can say "some information, more information, a lot of information, a piece of information". 6|Page

Here are a few more uncountable nouns:

give advice, some advice, a piece of advice (an advice, advices) do research, carry out research, research shows (a research,researches) gain knowledge, share knowledge, increase knowledge (knowledges)

IELTS Grammar: correct the mistakes Try to find and correct the mistakes in these sentences: 1. I agree that we should interest more with our own societies and countries. 2. There three main problems that we need to tackle first, education. 3. You should mention your opinion in the introduction so examiner have some idea what to expect from your essay. Feel free to share your corrections as 'comments'. I'll add my answers tomorrow. IELTS Grammar: nouns and verbs Sometimes the noun form and the verb form of a word are the same. For example, the word increase can be a noun or a verb. The problem is that nouns and verbs are used differently. You should learn to use both forms correctly. Here are some examples: Increase There was an increase in the unemployment rate. (noun) The unemployment rate increased. (verb) Lack There is a lack of investment in hospitals. (noun) Many hospitals lack the investment they need. (verb) Pay Companies should give men and women equal pay. (noun) Companies should pay men and women equally. (verb) IELTS Grammar: articles Today I'm attaching some questions that a student asked about articles. You can read my answers below each question. Please note that I cannot provide a complete explanation of all article rules and uses. Grammar books take many pages to do this! Article rules can become very confusing, so don't worry too much about them. Students who are good at using articles have normally learnt by copying what they read and hear, rather than by learning the 'rules'. IELTS Grammar: capital letters

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A few people have asked me about using capital letters in different parts of the IELTS test. Here's my advice:
In the reading and listening tests, they don't care about capital letters. So you can write

everything in lowercase or in capitals, and it won't affect your score.

In the writing test, try to follow the normal rules for capital letters. Grammar books and

websites explain these rules in detail. Click hereto see a website that summarises the rules quite well. IELTS Grammar: correct the mistakes Find the mistakes in the following sentences: 1. Parents influence on their children and give them many advices. 2. Students need to develop their knowledges and skills. 3. We can use the Internet to do some researches. 4. If we want to find some informations fastly, the Internet is the best resource. Feel free to share your answers in the "comments" area. I'll give you my answers tomorrow. IELTS Grammar: 'highest' or 'the highest'? Most grammar books will tell you that you need "the" before a superlative like "highest" or "lowest", but this is not always true.
We use "the" when there is a noun after the adjective e.g. the highest number, the highest

proportion.
When we put the noun before, we don't need "the" e.g. the number was highest, the

proportion was highest. So, compare these 2 sentences: - The UK had the highest rate of unemployment. - The unemployment rate was highest in the UK. IELTS Grammar: correct the mistakes Here are some more sentences that contain mistakes. See if you can find them.
Children are not enough mature to make decisions. Poor parenting has contributed children to misbehave more. Good parenting encourages children acquire social skills. Bringing up children and educate them is the responsibility of parents.

Please share your corrections in the "comments" area below this lesson. I'll add my corrections tomorrow. Can you write an error-free sentence? Yes? How about an error-free paragraph? That's not so easy.

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If you want to get a band 7 or higher for IELTS writing, the examiner needs to see that you "regularly write error-free sentences". This means that some (maybe half) of the sentences in your essays should contain no mistakes. The best way to improve your grammatical accuracy is by learning from your mistakes. Try to find a teacher or native speaker who can check your work and highlight the errors. Then make sure you understand the mistakes you made, and try to avoid making them again. Aim to write more error-free sentences each time you write an essay. IELTS Grammar: number, amount, proportion, figure Somebody asked me about the difference between these 4 words (for IELTS writing task 1). I'll try to explain some basic ways to use them. number - Use "the number of + plural noun" e.g. the number of visitors. - Don't use it to describe percentages or uncountable nouns e.g. money. amount - Use "the amount of + uncountable noun" e.g. the amount of money. - Don't use it with countable nouns e.g. the amount of person/people. proportion - Only use this to describe percentages (not numbers). - Use "the proportion of + plural noun" e.g. the proportion of people. figure - Use "the figure for + plural noun" e.g. the figure for visitors to the UK. - Use it with uncountable nouns e.g. the figure for unemployment. - Use it with countries e.g. the figure for Canada. - Use it with percentages e.g. the figure (for...) rose to 10%. Note: If you've read any of my task 1 essays, you'll see that I like "the figure for" because it can be used in almost any situation. IELTS Grammar: using 'see' in writing task 1 A few people have asked me about using 'see' to describe numbers on a graph or chart. Look at the following sentence:
In Britain, CD sales increased dramatically in the 1980s.

We can write the same sentence in various ways using 'see':

Britain saw a dramatic increase in CD sales in the 1980s. The 1980s saw a dramatic increase in CD sales in Britain. British shops saw CD sales increase dramatically in the 1980s.

IELTS Grammar: correct the mistakes Can you correct the mistakes in the following sentences? 9|Page

1. The pollution and waste that we produce also affect on animals. 2. Many animals are in danger extinction. 3. Traffic congestion in nearly all over the world is on the increase. 4. Most of people who live in cities are suffering from traffic. 5. Schools can make a big part in educating children about this issue. Please share your corrections in the "comments" area below this lesson. I'll add my corrections tomorrow. IELTS Grammar: correct the mistakes Can you find the mistakes in the following sentences? You might need to make several changes. 1. It is clear that, diploma and degree were the most popular qualifications. 2. Parents are usually try to provide their children different alternatives. 3. Most of computer games contain several of violence. 4. The number of people living in cities will be sharply increased. 5. Advertising are widely spread nowadays. Please share your corrections in the "comments" area below this lesson. I'll add my corrections tomorrow. IELTS Grammar: mistakes with the passive In which of these sentences is the passive used correctly? 1. The amount of rainfall was increased last month. 2. An increase in rainfall was seen last month. 3. The UK was experienced an increase in rainfall. 4. Rainfall has been reduced this year. 5. Income tax has been reduced this year.

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