Vocabulary and grammar for higher bands

What examiners mean by lexical resource and grammatical range, the collocations and complex structures that raise an IELTS Writing score, and the errors to eliminate first.

Half of your Writing score comes from Lexical Resource and Grammatical Range and Accuracy. Many candidates try to raise these by learning ‘advanced’ words and long sentences. Often the result is a lower score, because the new language is used inaccurately. This lesson explains what actually moves these two criteria and where to put your effort.

Part 1: Lexical Resource

Precision before rarity

Examiners reward the right word, not the rare word.

Collocation

Collocation means words that naturally go together. Correct collocation is the clearest sign of a strong vocabulary, and wrong collocation is the commonest vocabulary error at Band 6.

Frequent mistakes:

• ✗ do a mistake → ✓ make a mistake
• ✗ make research → ✓ do / carry out research
• ✗ strong traffic → ✓ heavy traffic
• ✗ big rain → ✓ heavy rain
• ✗ increase the awareness → ✓ raise awareness
• ✗ get knowledge → ✓ gain / acquire knowledge
• ✗ solve a solution → ✓ find a solution / solve a problem
• ✗ affect on → ✓ affect (no preposition) / have an effect on

How to learn collocations: when you record a noun, record the verbs and adjectives that go with it. Read model answers and underline two- and three-word combinations rather than single words.

Topic vocabulary

IELTS essays return to a limited set of topics. For each, learn fifteen to twenty useful expressions.

Style

Academic writing is neutral and fairly formal.

Word formation and spelling

Errors in word form are very noticeable: ✗ the economic is growing (→ economy); ✗ it is very benefit (→ beneficial); ✗ they are success (→ successful). Learn families:

benefit (n/v) – beneficial (adj) · economy – economic – economical – economically · success – succeed – successful · compete – competition – competitive · employ – employment – employer – employee – unemployed · environment – environmental – environmentally

Keep a personal list of words you misspell. Typical ones: environment, government, necessary, beginning, benefit, believe, achieve, opportunity, development, accommodation, knowledge, definitely, their/there.

Part 2: Grammatical Range and Accuracy

Range: the structures that count

You do not need exotic grammar. You need to show control of a variety of common complex structures.

1. Subordinate clauses

• Reason: Because / Since / As fewer journeys are made, pollution falls.
• Contrast: Although / While / Whereas this change brings problems, the benefits are greater.
• Condition: If teams meet in person twice a week, training need not suffer. / Unless action is taken, …
• Time: When / Once / As soon as children can print clearly, …
• Purpose: …so that pupils are not excluded. / …in order to preserve businesses

2. Relative clauses

• Defining: Employees who used to spend two hours commuting now have that time.
• Non-defining (with commas): Someone can settle in a cheaper region, which may help to revive small towns.
• Reduced: The time saved can be spent with family. / People living in remote areas benefit most.

3. Conditionals

• Real: If governments invest in transport, congestion will fall.
• Hypothetical (very useful for proposals): If they provided safe cycle paths, parents would feel more confident.
• Past unreal (occasionally): If the company had asked about price, it would have discovered…

4. Passives

• Public money would be better spent on… / More needs to be done to… / It is often claimed that…

5. Noun clauses and impersonal structures

• What is disappearing is one function of the centre.
• It is hardly surprising that people disagree.
• The fact that prices have risen suggests…
• There is little evidence that…

6. Comparatives

• The more children exercise, the healthier they become.
• far more / considerably less … than; not as … as

7. Participle clauses

• Worried about traffic, many parents drive their children to school.
• Bus travel fell, reaching 140 in 2025.

8. Modals for hedging

• This may / might / could lead to… / is likely to… / tends to…

Aim to include several of these naturally in each essay, mixed with shorter sentences. A text made only of long sentences is as tiring as one made only of short ones.

Accuracy: fix these first

Research into candidates’ scripts shows that a small number of error types account for most mistakes. Find yours and eliminate them.

1. Articles

• ✗ Government should invest in the education. → ✓ The government should invest in education.
• General rule: singular countable nouns need a determiner (a, the, this, my); abstract and plural nouns used generally take no article (education, pollution, cars).

2. Subject–verb agreement

• ✗ The number of cars have risen. → ✓ has risen (the subject is number)
• ✗ Everyone have… → ✓ has
• ✗ People is… → ✓ are

3. Countable / uncountable

• ✗ informations, advices, researches, equipments, knowledges, furnitures → no plural
• ✗ less people → ✓ fewer people; ✗ many pollution → ✓ much / a great deal of pollution

4. Verb patterns

• ✗ avoid to use → ✓ avoid using; ✗ suggest to build → ✓ suggest building / suggest that … should build
• ✗ allow people working → ✓ allow people to work
• ✗ prevent people to drive → ✓ prevent people from driving

5. Prepositions

• depend on, result in, lead to, contribute to, deal with, focus on, invest in, an increase in, a reason for, a solution to, an effect on, responsible for

6. Sentence boundaries

• Run-on / comma splice: ✗ Cars cause pollution, this is a serious problem. → ✓ …pollution*, which** is a serious problem.* / …pollution. This is…
• Fragment: ✗ Because it is cheap. → attach it to a main clause.

7. Tense consistency – especially in Task 1.

8. Punctuation

• Comma after an introductory clause: Although it is expensive*,** it is popular.*
• No comma before that: ✗ I believe, that…
• Commas around non-defining relative clauses.

The error-free sentence

For Band 7, ‘frequent error-free sentences’; for Band 8, ‘the majority’. A practical technique:

1. After writing, read one sentence at a time, from the last sentence to the first. Reading backwards stops you from following the meaning and lets you see the grammar.
2. For each sentence, check your own top three error types, and nothing else.
3. Leave four or five minutes at the end of the test for this.

A sentence upgraded step by step

Band 5: Many people use car. It make pollution. Government must do something. Band 6: Many people use cars, and this causes a lot of pollution, so the government should do something about it. Band 7: Because so many people travel by car, air pollution has become a serious problem, and governments need to take action to reduce it. Band 8: The heavy reliance on private cars has made air pollution a pressing problem in most large cities, and it is unlikely to improve unless governments invest in alternatives that people are genuinely willing to use.

Each step adds accuracy, then precision, then range. None of the Band 8 words is obscure.

Key points

• Precision and collocation matter more than rare words.
• Learn topic vocabulary as phrases, and keep the style neutral and formal.
• Show range with common complex structures: subordinate and relative clauses, conditionals, passives, participles.
• Identify your three most frequent error types and check for them every time.
• Error-free sentences are the route to Band 7 and beyond.

IELTS is a registered trademark of the British Council, IDP: IELTS Australia and Cambridge University Press & Assessment. PrepFreely is not affiliated with, approved or endorsed by them.