What does 'good grammar' mean in the IELTS exam?

To get a high grammar score in the IELTS writing test, you need to be using ‘a variety of complex structures’. A complex structure is one which has more than one clause (basically an idea) in it. However, some complex structures are more complex than others. In particular, you should watch out for what often gets called ‘FANBOYS’. This stands for ‘for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so’. FANBOYS are less complex than some other grammar types of grammar. You can use these; however, if you only use these, your examiner might not think your grammar is complex enough.

The problem with learning grammar for the IELTS is that there are so many types of complex grammar you could be using. A lot of these aren’t very flexible. For example, you might not get too many chances to use ‘since’ to make complex sentences in an essay. Lots of students spend their time trying to learn as many complex structures as possible; however, the best thing to do is actually study a few highly flexible structures in detail so that you can use them accurately in every essay you write.

Because accuracy matters, it’s better to be an expert in using a few structures than to be an amateur in using many structures. For this course, I'm going to teach you three of the most flexible structures that are most likely to impress your examiners. You'll get one in this class and two in the next class.

Adding complex grammar with appositives

An appositive is an extra bit of information that we include inside a sentence. Here’s an example:

Practical English, my new favourite online school, has been sending me really helpful IELTS materials.

The appositive goes straight after what it’s adding information about. The extra information has been separated off from the rest of the sentence with commas. If your appositive is at the end of the sentence, you only need one comma. For example:

I’ve been studying IELTS with Practical English, my new favourite online school.

You can also use ‘who’ or ‘which’ in these if you’d like. Generally, this doesn’t change the meaning too much. For example:

Tim, the teacher, has a really orange wall for making videos.

Tim, who is the teacher, has a really orange wall for making videos.

Appositives are fairly simple to make, the only rule is that the rest of the sentence should have the same meaning with or without the appositive. If we look at the sentences above, the appositive doesn’t change the meaning of the rest of the sentence. For example:

Practical English, my new favourite online school, has been sending me really helpful IELTS materials.

Has the same meaning as:

Practical English has been sending me really helpful IELTS materials

But this sentence doesn’t work as an appositive:

❌I’ve been studying, IELTS, with Practical English.

Because its meaning is different to:

I’ve been studying with Practical English

To recap, appositives:

• Are additional information added to a sentence just after the thing they are adding information about.
• Are separated from the rest of the sentence by one or two commas.
• Shouldn’t change the meaning of the rest of the sentence.

To practice, take a look at this paragraph. Where you see a number, see if you can add an appositive.

One of the reasons that people are becoming overweight these days is that they are eating more junk food [1]. This is because many people [2] are busy. After a long day at work [3], it is easier to just buy ready meals in the supermarket or get takeout. If people ate more home-cooked food [4], they would be healthier.

You can see my answer at the end of this post.

In the next class, you will learn two more complex types of grammar for the IELTS exam. If you have any questions about appositives or IELTS grammar, send me an email or drop a comment at the bottom of this post.

Sample Answer

There are a lot of different appositives you could insert into this essay. This is just my answer and yours may look very different while still being a great answer:

One of the reasons that people are becoming overweight these days is that they are eating more junk food, which is less healthy than other foods. This is because many people, who often have work and family commitments, are busy. After a long day at work, when they are most tired, it is easier to just buy ready meals in the supermarket or get takeout. If people ate more home cooked food , which can be made with organic fresh ingredients, they would be healthier.