Common IELTS Writing mistakes and how to fix them

Many marks in IELTS Writing are lost to repeated habits and not to a single hard word. The habits are about how an answer is built: whether it is long enough, whether it stays on the question, whether the paragraphs have a point, and whether the same habit shows up in every sentence.

This guide goes through the mistakes that IELTS.org names, then those that the band descriptors warn about. Each has an invented example and a fix. IELTS publishes no figures on how often each mistake occurs, so the guide does not rank them. For the whole paper, see the guide to the Writing test format for Task 1 and Task 2.

The mistakes IELTS.org names

IELTS.org’s Academic Writing format page says an answer will be penalised if what you write does not relate to the topic, or if it is not written as a whole piece of connected text, and that you will be severely penalised if your writing is plagiarised. It says that a too-short answer may not give enough evidence of the language features needed for higher bands. It asks for an academic or semi-formal or neutral style. The General Training page repeats the points on topic, notes and plagiarism, and says the style of a Task 1 letter depends on whom you are writing to.

Mistake 1: too short

An invented Task 2 answer has two paragraphs and 190 words: an opening, one idea and a closing line. The fix is to plan for two developed body paragraphs before you write, not to add a filler sentence at the end. Our guide to the 150 and 250 word minimums explains what IELTS says about length.

Mistake 2: off topic

The prompt asks whether children under twelve should have their own phones. The answer is a general essay on technology, with a paragraph on social media and one on video games. Each paragraph is competent, but none answers the question. The fix: before writing, underline the key words of the prompt and write the question in your plan. After each paragraph, ask whether it answers that question.

Mistake 3: notes or bullet points

Advantages of working from home: - saves time - quiet - flexible. Disadvantages: - lonely.

This is a useful note for a plan and a penalised answer in the test. IELTS.org says answers must be full sentences. The fix is to turn each note into a sentence with a reason: “Working from home saves the time that would be spent travelling, which many people use to rest or study.”

Mistake 4: copied or memorised material

IELTS.org’s wording is about plagiarism, meaning text copied from another source, which it says is severely penalised. The site’s paraphrase of the Task Response descriptors, found on the Writing band descriptors page, adds a related warning: a prepared paragraph dropped into an essay on a different subject. An invented case is an opening sentence that begins “In today’s modern society, technology has become an indispensable part of life” on a question about museums.

The fix is to write your own sentence about the actual topic. A phrase for linking or hedging that you know well is fine. A whole paragraph that was written before you saw the question is not.

Mistake 5: the wrong style

Academic Writing asks for an academic or semi-formal or neutral style. An invented line such as “Kids these days are glued to screens, which is totally crazy” breaks it twice: it is slang, and it is a judgement with no reasoning. The better line is “Children now spend a large part of the day looking at screens, which raises questions about sleep and attention.”

In General Training Task 1 the style is set by the reader. A letter to a friend can be personal. A letter to a manager is more formal, and writing to an accommodation officer in the tone of a message to a friend is a style mistake. Decide the register from the “who” in the task before you write the first line.

The mistakes the band descriptors warn about

These come from the descriptors, as the site paraphrases them on its Writing band descriptors page. They are marked under specific criteria and tend to separate bands 5, 6 and 7.

Mistake 6: no clear position

Task Response descriptors expect one position that holds from the introduction to the conclusion. An invented essay says “Some people think cities should limit cars, while others disagree. Both views have merit,” and never says what the writer thinks. The fix: put your position in one sentence in the introduction, and make each topic sentence serve it. A balanced view is allowed, but it has to be a view: “limits help in city centres, though not in rural areas.”

A related problem is saying one thing in the introduction and the opposite in the second body paragraph. Read your conclusion and your introduction side by side to check they agree.

Mistake 7: mechanical or over-used linking words

The descriptors at band 6 describe linking that is applied from outside, and at band 5 describe linking words used more often than the writing needs. An invented example:

Firstly, cities are crowded. Secondly, this is a serious issue. Thirdly, the government must act on this. Moreover, it has the power to act. Moreover, citizens want change.

The fix is to let the ideas do the connecting. Use a pronoun or a repeated key term to carry the reader forward, and keep a linking word for a real change of direction, such as “however” or “as a result”. The guide to linking words and coherence covers this in more depth.

Mistake 8: repeated vocabulary

The Lexical Resource descriptors at lower bands describe a narrow range, with a few words doing all the work. An invented paragraph uses “important” in five sentences: “education is important”, “it is important to learn”, and so on. The fix is precision, not rarity: name what kind of importance you mean (“education widens the jobs a person can apply for”). The descriptors also warn that an uncommon word swapped in for a plain one that was already right can make a sentence worse, so keep the word that fits.

Mistake 9: paragraphs without a central topic

The Coherence and Cohesion descriptors for bands 6 and 7 ask for paragraphs that each have one topic a reader could name. An invented body paragraph begins with traffic, moves to air pollution, and ends with the length of bus journeys, all in a single block. The fix: write the topic sentence first, in plain words, and test each later sentence against it. If a sentence belongs to a different topic, move it to a new paragraph or cut it.

A checking routine for the last five minutes

Use the list in the same order each time so that it becomes automatic.

1. Is every part of the question answered, and does the position stay the same throughout?
2. Does each paragraph have one topic that I could say in a few words?
3. Are there linking words at the start of most sentences?
4. Is any word repeated more often than it needs to be?
5. Are the word minimums met, and is the style right for this task?

Our guide to managing time in IELTS Writing shows where those five minutes sit in the hour, and the guide to two-part questions covers the first item for questions with two jobs.

Finding your own repeated mistakes

A mistake is only fixable once you can see it. Write three or four practice answers, then look at them as a set, because a repeated habit is easier to see across several answers than in one. IELTS Mentor AI gives, for each Writing criterion, what worked and how to improve, which shows where a repeated habit sits in your marks. The answer on how to improve your IELTS Writing score gives the wider plan, and changing one habit per essay keeps the comparison clear.