e-englishteacher.com

Hi

As you probably know, in IELTS Academic Writing task 1 you have to write a summary of the information in a graph, chart, table or diagram (or more than one of these). When the information relates to countries such as America or Britain, which it often does, there is one very common mistake that I see a lot of our learners make…

The mistake is leaving out the article ‘the‘ when reporting information about the US or the UK.

When a country has a noun such as ‘states’, ‘kingdom’ or ‘republic’ in its name, the article ‘the‘ should be used.

What’s more, ‘the UK’ or ‘the US’ both count as two words while ‘UK’ or ‘US’ only count as one.

What this means is that if you use the article ‘the’ correctly, you’ll make less grammar mistakes and have a better chance of writing at least 150 words (the minimum word count for task 1).

That’s two steps closer to getting the IELTS Writing band score you need.

Pete

Related Posts:

1. How to make fewer mistakes in your writing
2. IELTS Academic Writing task 1: what information should you include? (2)
3. To self-correct or not to self-correct (that is the question)
4. Speaking speed and your IELTS score
5. IELTS Academic Writing task 1: what information should you include?

Tags: Articles, Grammar for IELTS, IELTS writing task 1