6 Most Occurring Mistakes in IELTS Writing Task 2

A few weeks ago I got the opportunity to check the IELTS practice tests of different students. I was checking essays of IELTS Writing Task 2. After examining a lot of essays, I noticed that most of the students were making the same mistakes. Therefore, I feel necessary to write a post so that you guys may avoid the most occurring mistakes.

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What You'll Learn:

6 Common Mistakes in IELTS Writing Task 2

·         How to Avoid Mistakes

In this short article, I have tried my level best to provide you the real insights about the mistakes that people do in their IELTS test. Also, you will learn how you can avoid these little mistakes. Below here are the 6 common mistakes in IELTS Writing Task 2.

Injecting Vocabulary:

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I noticed that most of the students always try to prepare for IELTS Writing by memorizing difficult and log list of "Academic" words. Secondly, they always try to incorporate these words in their essays. The main issue with this strategy is that it leads to the IELTS candidate using words that are either unsuitable (the wrong meaning) or incorrect (the wrong grammar).

It is important that you must have a good vocabulary to achieve higher band scores, but it doesn't mean that you must try to inject as many complicated words within your essay as possible. This approach will lead to you a difficult situation and will only reduce your band score because of using words with wrong meanings and with wrong grammar too.

Instead of injecting and memorizing more complicated words, try to learn the selected vocabulary for IELTS Writing Task 2 that will eventually result in higher band scores. Moreover, you can read magazines and newspapers to improve further your vocabulary. Also, keep in mind that you should be 100% confident about the grammar and the meaning of a word before using it in your essay, else you must stick yourself with words that you already know.

Minor Grammar Mistakes:

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When I checked the essays of the IELTS Candidates, I noticed that most of the candidates have a sound understanding of grammar, but almost everyone was doing minor mistakes. It is important to remember that if your sentences contain small errors, then it would be difficult to get more than 6 Band.

The most common grammar mistakes include subject-verb agreement, articles, countable and un-countable nouns. You can overcome this problem by contacting with a native English speaker to have a look at your writing and most importantly on your grammar. Mostly people are in a habit of doing 2 to 3 mistakes over and over again. You can identify these mistakes by contacting with a native speaker to proofread your writing. In IELTS Writing Task 2, you must manage your time in a way to give 2 to 3 minutes to proofread your essay. If you practice this strategy it will be easier for you produce more error-free sentences.

Overdoing Cohesive Devices:

Cohesive devices are words like ‘For Instance', ‘Furthermore', "Despite of', "In Addition', ‘On the other hand', ‘For Example', etc. These cohesive devices are used for a purpose; as they tell the reader that there is a relationship between the paragraphs, clauses and sentences. 

The biggest misconception regarding the use of "cohesive Devices" is the more you use them, the better you will get a band. It is important to comprehend that these cohesive devices have a purpose, but they must only be used when necessary.  If you look at the essay with Band 9 answer or academic writing in a journal or a textbook you'll notice that they have used less cohesive devices than you would expect. 

Always make is sure that your new sentence doesn't start from cohesive devices. Also, try to limit yourself to only 2-3 paragraphs. By following this method, your writing will become more cohesive and coherent and eventually you’ll get more band score in your IELTS Test.

Not Answering Both Parts of the Question Equally:

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It is evident that most of the times in IELTS Writing Task 2 there are questions with two parts, and some have two separate questions. Also, these types of questions ask you to ‘discuss both views' like advantages and disadvantages, problems and solutions, etc. The important thing here is to understand that if you write 8 sentences about one side and only 2 for the other, then you have not completely covered both parts of the question.

Similarly, most of the IELTS candidates in their IELTS Practice Tests keep on writing about one thing and were not having ample time to cover the other parts of the question. Therefore, it is important that you must plan your essay. Almost 90% of the IELTS Writing Task 2 Essays are Argumentative Essays, and you must cover the both ends of the questions.

Writing Solely on Topic and Ignoring Question:

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One of the most difficult and frustrating things is to mark an essay that has a grammar and vocabulary, but completely missed the point when it comes to answering the question. The most common problem here is writing everything generally on the topic and not paying attention to the question. For Instance: "Computers have altered the traditional education system, and there will soon be no role of teachers in education. To What extent you Agree or Disagree?

Look here the question and understand it fully. The question is surely about the generic topic the use of "computer in education", but the question needs a reply about how the computer is going to replace the teachers in future. Also, the question is asking about your views on this, and you need to present examples to support your arguments.

Inability to Develop Ideas:

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This is a very technical side as a lot of people are not able to grasp this side completely. I have noticed that most of the times people do understand the question completely, but they are not presenting the answers with examples. For instance, the question might ask you to write about advantages and disadvantages of mobile phone, and you write 5 advantages and 5 disadvantages, but not developed your ideas like an academic essay then you will not get more bands.

It would be much better if you just write about two ideas for each side and fully explain them with relevant examples and explanation. If you write like this "the main advantage of mobile phone is that it is a source of better communication, You can use the internet on mobile phone, mobile phones have a lot of gadgets that will help us in our daily lives. Even though, all of these examples are relevant to the topic, but no explanation is provided for every claim. Therefore, it is necessary that you must develop your ideas in a way that your each claim must have valid examples and explanation.