Free IELTS study resources
300+ short, practical vocabulary, grammar, and strategy guides for Reading, Listening, Writing, and Speaking — not another question bank.
IELTS language bank: Common False Friends and Mistranslations
Genuinely documented false friends and direct-translation calques that recur across IELTS candidates — real, specific confusions, not invented examples.
8 min readWritingIELTS language bank: Describing Trends (General)
Distinct from chart vocabulary — idiomatic, hedged language for discussing a societal or economic trend in Task 2 and Speaking Part 3, without borrowing Task 1's data-precise verbs.
8 min readWritingWriting: The Task 1 Overview Paragraph — What It Must Contain
A missing or weak overview is one of the most common reasons a technically accurate Academic Task 1 response still loses Task Achievement marks — here's exactly what it must contain, where it goes, and how it differs from the body paragraphs around it.
6 min readWritingWriting: Task 2 Introduction Techniques
A weak introduction wastes valuable early words and can signal a weak overall argument before the essay's actual content even begins — here's how to paraphrase the prompt and state a genuine thesis in roughly 40-60 well-chosen words.
6 min readWritingWriting: Task 2 Conclusion Techniques
A conclusion that just repeats the introduction with a few words swapped wastes the essay's final, high-visibility sentences — here's how to synthesise an argument's development into a genuine closing statement instead.
6 min readWritingWriting: Task 2 Body Paragraph Structure
A reliable paragraph structure makes each point land clearly and helps Coherence & Cohesion — here's a dependable template, its four components explained separately, and where candidates most often deviate from it.
6 min readWritingWriting: GT Letter Openings and Closings by Formality Level
The exact opening and closing phrases you use signal formality level immediately — here's the correct fixed set for formal, semi-formal, and informal GT letters, and the pairing rules examiners specifically check.
6 min readWritingWriting: Informal Letter Register Specifically
Writing convincingly informally is a genuine, separate skill from formal academic writing, and one many candidates trained mainly on essay writing underestimate — here's what actually makes a GT letter's body read as natural and informal throughout.
6 min readWritingWriting: Planning Time Management for Task 1 and Task 2
The five minutes before you write are not spent thinking about the topic — they're spent deciding your position, your points, and your paragraph shape. Here's exactly how to use that window so the essay you write next has already been mapped out.
7 min readWritingWriting: Common Task 2 Topic Areas — An Overview
Task 2 prompts look infinite until you notice they cluster into a handful of recurring subject areas. Here's the real landscape, why memorising specific prompts fails, and how to build flexible depth within each area instead.
6 min readWritingWriting: Avoiding Memorised Phrases and Templates
Examiners are specifically trained to spot rehearsed language, and a suspiciously polished generic sentence costs marks even when it's grammatically flawless. Here's exactly what memorisation looks like on the page, and how to prepare vocabulary without it.
7 min readWritingWriting: Word Count and Time Budgeting
150 and 250 words are hard floors with a real, documented penalty for falling short — not soft guidelines. Here's exactly what the minimums cost you if missed, a safer target range, and how to judge length without constantly stopping to count.
7 min readWritingWriting: Task 1 — Selecting Which Data to Include
A complex chart can hold forty numbers, and describing all of them produces a transcription, not a report. Here's how to select the figures that actually deserve a sentence, with a full worked example of selective versus mechanical reporting.
7 min readWritingWriting: Balancing Both Sides in Discussion Essays
"Discuss both views" is a specific promise, and giving one side a full paragraph while the other gets a single thin sentence breaks it. Here's how to develop a view you disagree with just as convincingly as your own opinion.
7 min readWritingWriting: Strategy for the Final Few Minutes Under Time Pressure
Realising you're behind schedule mid-essay calls for triage, not panic — a genuine fallback plan decided in advance. Here's exactly what to finish, what to cut, and why a rushed conclusion still beats no conclusion at all.
7 min readWritingWriting: Proofreading Strategy for the Last Few Minutes
A general re-read misses exactly the errors your eye slides past because the sentence still makes sense. Here's why a targeted, priority-ordered proofreading pass catches far more in the same two or three minutes.
7 min readWritingWriting: Task Response vs. Task Achievement — What Each Really Means
Same criterion, two different names depending on the task — and each one is shaped entirely by what that specific task demands. Here's what Task Achievement checks for Task 1 and Task Response checks for Task 2, with a worked contrast between them.
7 min readWritingAnatomy of a Band 9 Task 2 Essay
A structural walkthrough built around one full, dissected Band 9 sample essay — not just abstract advice about "good vocabulary," but the actual structure examined sentence by sentence.
7 min readWritingAnatomy of a Band 9 GT Letter
A structural walkthrough built around one full, dissected Band 9 sample letter — showing exactly how tone, bullet coverage, and register work sentence by sentence, not just in the abstract.
6 min readWritingAnatomy of a Band 9 Academic Task 1 Report
A full invented chart and a complete Band 9-level report responding to it, dissected sentence by sentence to show exactly why each choice earns marks.
8 min read