Today we’ll answer student questions about being great at IELTS grammar.
First of all, remember that it can take a year to increase your Grammar score in IELTS Speaking and Writing, so you should be putting your efforts into the other scoring categories.
Here’s the first question from a 3 Keys student in Facebook:
Should I use ‘this kind of jobs are’ or ‘these kinds of jobs are’?
The first is definitely not correct, but the second one is correct.
Here’s another question:
Is it fine to use ‘kind of’ in IELTS Writing Task 2, or are there any alternatives?
Do not use ‘kind of‘ in academic writing– it’s vague, informal and boring.
Instead, you can say ‘somewhat‘, which sounds very impressive.
However, on that note, just don’t express the idea of ‘kind of‘. It is not strong and does not convey any necessary information.
Students tend to add words like this and it detracts from a strong position and clarity– both of which are part of your score in Writing.
Our student also asked:
Which one is correct: ‘My uncle, who is a mining engineer, is a great example of this’, or, ‘My uncle who is a mining engineer is a great example of this’?
Also, what is an alternative word for ‘great’?
The first one, with commas, is correct.
Now, instead of ‘great example‘, you can say ‘prime example‘ or ‘shining example‘.
And the final question:
Is this correct: ‘His job requires a great amount of physical activities’?
Firstly, the last word, ‘activities‘, should be singular.
Instead of ‘great‘, here, say ‘incredible‘ or ‘an awful lot‘.
Click here for more paraphrases to use instead of ‘a lot’.
What IELTS questions do you have?
Ask us in the comments section below!