Grammar for IELTS writing good sentences

When writing in your IELTS test it is essential that you use a range of sentence structures, from simple to complex sentence forms. In order to write good sentences for IELTS means you will need how to form each type of sentence.

Start by looking at these examples:

SIMPLE SENTENCE:

• Smoking can cause cancer. 

COMPOUND SENTENCE:

• Smoking can cause cancer, so should be banned. 

COMPLEX SENTENCE:

• Even though smoking can cause cancer, many people continue to buy cigarettes. 

Now let’s look at each type of sentence in more detail. 

Simple sentences

As the name suggests, simple sentences are quite basic in structure. They need only a subject and a verb. Because they are the easiest form of sentence structure, it is important to make sure that your essay does not overly used this form of sentence structure.

 Compound sentences

Compound sentences are formed when simple sentences are combined using a linking word (called a ‘conjunction’ word). There are seven conjunctions that can be used to combine simple sentences:

FOR, AND, NOR, BUT, OR, YET and SO (looking at the first letter of each of this conjunctions, you can spell ‘FANBOYS‘ – a useful way to help you remember!). In the example sentence used at the beginning of this page, SO has been used to combineSmoking can cause cancer SO (smoking) should be banned.

 Complex sentences

These are the most important sentences for a good IELTS result – they are more difficult to accurately build, but are essential to make your writing ‘academic’. Complex sentences are created from 2 or more phrases joined together with a conjunction, but not the conjunctions used in compound sentences (FANBOYS). Instead, there are considerable more conjunctions that can be used. Here are some examples: even if, so that, unless, even so.

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