MOST COMMON MISTAKES STUDENTS MAKE IN IELTS WRITING TASK 2 1. Do not use
(...) (etc) when writing a list. Instead, lists of examples should
follow the pattern; (A and B), (A, B, and C), or (A, B, C, and D). For
example: one of the biggest problems in big cities is unemployment, crime and pollution. 2. No question mark in your essay: Do not ask the reader any questions in
your essays. For example; “How do you think we can solve the problem of over-crowding in cities?” 3. Do not use exclamation points in your essays. Don’t yell at the reader.
For example; “In my opinion, it's the best solution to over-crowding in cities ! ” 4. Phrases like “more and more”, “bigger and bigger”, “greater and greater” are too informal
, and
only good for speaking
,
not good for
academic writing
. Instead of writing “more and more people are driving cars these days”, you could use trend language in task 1 writing to write this
sentence like
“increasing numbers of people are using cars these days ” “a significantly larger number of people using cars these days ” “a growing increase in the number of people using cars these days ”, “nowadays, the number of people who own cars has increased”; “increasing numbers of students are going abroad for university study ”; “the number of cities that suffer from pollution has increased tremendously in recent decades” . That’s
much better
than
“more and more”. In addition, instead of using the
structure such as
