Why a grammar mistake costs more than one mark
Grammatical range and accuracy is 25 percent of the Writing score and 25 percent of Speaking. In Writing it is judged on both range and accuracy together, so repeated small errors penalise twice.
A single error is rarely the problem. Examiners discount isolated slips, because no candidate is perfect across two hours. The problem is a pattern: the same error three or four times reads as something the candidate does not know, and that is what the descriptor is measuring.
The ten that come up most
1. Subject-verb agreement with uncountable nouns
"Information are" is very common. Information, advice, equipment, research, furniture and luggage do not take a plural verb in British usage, which is what IELTS follows.
Correct: "The information I found was useful."
Correct: "This research shows that..."
2. "Since" versus "for"
Since for time, since for cause. "I have been studying since six months" is a double error that appears often enough to be worth isolating.
Correct: "I have been studying for six months."
Correct: "I have improved a lot since I started practising daily."
3. Articles missing on countable nouns
English needs an article before a singular countable noun. Indian languages do not, which makes this the single most common error in Task 2 answers.
Incorrect: "Government should invest more in education."
Correct: "The government should invest more in education."
4. The third person singular -s
"He do" instead of "he does", "she write" instead of "she writes". Simple, and it appears repeatedly in Speaking where there is no time to edit.
Correct: "She writes regularly for the newspaper."
5. Present perfect used for past finished actions
"Since I came here" where "I came" is meant. The present perfect links past to now. A completed action at a finished time takes the past simple.
Correct: "I came to Yamunanagar in 2024." (a specific finished time)
Correct: "I have lived here for three years." (still true)
6. Run-on sentences joined by "because"
Two independent clauses need a full stop, a semicolon, or a coordinating conjunction. Comma plus "because" is not a joiner in written English.
Incorrect: "The chart shows a rise, because demand increased."
Correct: "The chart shows a rise because demand increased."
7. Relative clause with no antecedent
"People who live in cities" is fine. "The problem which affects them" is not, if which has nothing to refer back to. "The problem that affects them."
8. "In" versus "at" for places
Use "in" for a city or country, "at" for a specific building or address.
Correct: "I studied in Canada."
Correct: "The office is at 519B Darshan Lane."
9. Modal verbs with no to
Can, could, may, might, must, should, would, will, shall, ought, need and dare never take "to". A very visible error because it appears in almost every answer.
Incorrect: "It can to be difficult."
Correct: "It can be difficult."
10. Conditional forms, especially the third
The third conditional is the one candidates avoid by over-using the second.
Correct second: "If I had more time, I would study more." (unreal now, but possible)
Correct third: "If I had had more time, I would have studied more." (unreal in the past)
Mixing these two is a range error rather than an accuracy error, which means it costs you on the "range" half of the criterion.
How to fix them rather than memorise them
Memorising rules does not work for a second language, because you need to produce the correct form while thinking about content.
What works is error logging, and it takes ten minutes a day:
- Keep one file, per skill
- Every time you write something you are unsure of, note it
- Once a week, check only the entries from that week
- Look up the rule, then write three more correct sentences
Over a month you will have a list of maybe fifteen items that are genuinely yours. That list is the curriculum. It is shorter than any grammar book and far more effective, because it is built from the errors you actually make rather than the ones a textbook assumes you make.
Why Writing and Speaking need different corrections
In Writing you can slow down, and you should re-read at least once specifically for grammar. Two minutes of that reading catches a surprising number of the errors above.
In Speaking there is no re-reading. The only defence is repetition: say the correct version often enough that it comes out without thinking. That is why shadowing helps accuracy as well as fluency, even though it is not usually done for that reason.
The point worth remembering
A Band 7 candidate in Writing is not someone with no grammar errors. The descriptors describe someone who uses a range of structures with only occasional errors that do not impede communication.
Occasional. Not zero, and not a repeated pattern. The ten above stop being marks lost once they are not a habit.
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