IELTS Grammar

Grammar is scored directly as Grammatical Range and Accuracy in both Writing and Speaking — and it's one of the fastest sub-scores to improve with focused practice, because unlike vocabulary range, correctness is something you can systematically check.

What "range and accuracy" actually means

Examiners want to see two things at once: that you can produce a genuine range of grammatical structures (not just simple sentences joined with "and"), and that you use them with reasonable accuracy. A high band needs both — perfectly accurate but only simple sentences caps your score just as much as ambitious sentences full of errors.

The structures worth practicing deliberately

• A mix of sentence types — simple, compound, and complex sentences used naturally together, not complex sentences forced in just to look impressive.
• Conditionals — especially second and third conditional ("If governments invested more, pollution would fall"), which appear constantly in Task 2 opinion essays.
• Relative clauses — ("a policy which has proven effective") for adding detail without starting a new sentence.
• Passive voice — used naturally where it fits, especially in Academic Writing Task 1 process descriptions.
• Articles and subject-verb agreement — small, high-frequency errors that are easy to fix once you know to watch for them, and that examiners notice precisely because they recur.

How to actually get more accurate

The most reliable way to improve accuracy is to write real answers under real conditions and get specific feedback on what actually went wrong — not generic advice, but "you dropped the article here" or "this verb tense doesn't match your timeline." That's exactly what our Writing and Speaking Practice tools are for: submit a real answer and get a criterion-by-criterion breakdown, including Grammatical Range and Accuracy specifically, so you know exactly what to fix next.

Full Access also includes the Grammar chapters inside English Improvement, each with a short self-check quiz so you can confirm a rule has actually stuck before moving on.