Hi there! It's Asiya. Welcome to my channel! And the question is: what do IELTS
examiners look for to award Band 8? When it comes to your grammar, you have
to use different types of sentences and other complex grammatical structures.
According to IELTS band descriptors, you have to use a mix of simple and complex
sentence forms in order to get Band 6, a variety of complex structures to get
Band 7 and a wide range of structures to get Band 8 or 9. For
this video I've prepared six types of English sentences that will help you to
get that Band 8 score. But don't forget: in order to get a high score for your grammar,
your writing has to be complex but it also has to be accurate. So please pay
attention to those commas and other grammar rules you may
well loathe. Let's get started!
first of all let's talk about the complex sentences that's where you use
words like well where until although and so on many countries encourage
tourism because it brings economic growth in this sentence we have an
independent clause many countries encourage tourism and the dependent
clause because it brings economic growth we could put the dependent clause at the
beginning of the sentence because tourism brings economic growth many
countries encourage it when the sentence begins with words like because although
when until it means the dependent clause goes first and we have to put a comma at
the end of this dependent clause in the middle sentence but if the dependent
clause is at the end of the sentence like in the first example we don't need a comma
another type of complex sentences is called conditional clauses
or if clauses it means there is a conditional sentence and action in the
main clause will only happen if the condition is met it's easier if you see
an example if carbon dioxide emissions are not curbed
comma the climate of the planet will change significantly please note I use
the present simple in the if clause and the future simple in the main clause
there are several types of these conditional sentences here is
another one if diesel cars have not been subsidized in the UK the air pollution
problem would not have reached the present levels I showed how to use
different types of conditioners in my video called IELTS grammar fix top 5
mistakes and I'm going to link it here the next type of sentence which is great
to use in IELTS writing it's a relative clause that's where you use pronounce who
which that and it helps to add extra information about a person place or thing
relative clauses help to make your writing more fluent and coherent let's take an
example we used earlier and add a relative close into it many countries
which suffer from the loss of traditional industries encourage tourism
because it brings economic growth please note if the meaning of sentence is clear
without the relative clause you have to put a comma before and after like in
this example but if you can't really remove the relative clause because the
meaning of the sentence will be lost then you don't need commas and I
have a separate video about how to use it correctly which is going to be linked
just here we talked about the complex sentences another way to vary your
sentence structures is to use compound sentences that's when you have two
simple sentences and you link them together with conjunctions such as and
but or yet for example here are two simple sentences many young people
cannot afford to pay university fees the government should take steps to
alleviate this problem we could say many young people cannot afford to pay
university fees so the government should take steps to alleviate this problem
it's a compound sentence we could also say many young people can't afford to
pay university fees but the government hasn't taken any steps to alleviate this
problem please note if you have a compound sentence with linkers such as
and but or yet so you need to put a comma between the clauses however there
are some compound sentences where you have to use a semicolon and
if you want to get been seven or eight or nine for your grammar you have to know
where you put a comma and where you put a semicolon so let's have a look okay
compound sentences with a semicolon money is not the root of all evil I do
not believe the reverse is necessarily true
there is no conjunction no linker that's why we use a semicolon have a look at
what happens with this sentence if I add the word however I use a semicolon
before the word however and a comma after that's because we could split it
into two separate sentences and we would still keep the word however like here
and I can give you a list of linking words to use with the semicolon
consequently therefore however nevertheless thus hence henceforth in fact
and here is another example money cannot buy happiness
semicolon nevertheless comma a high paying job can bring comfort and
financial stability now let me show you a fancy a way of making a complex
sentence from two very simple sentences that's definitely band 8-9 grammar
imagine we have these two very simple sentences students pay high tuition fees
students expect to find a well-paid job upon graduation what we could say is
after paying high tuition fees students expect to find a well-paid job upon
graduation it's called a participle phrase basically is just a verb with ing
what's important is that both sentences have the same subject the students
otherwise it wouldn't work if one action happened before the other
we could use the past form our simple sentences are the young people have
accumulated a large student debt young people struggle to take out a mortgage
or start a family we could say having accumulated a large student debt young
people struggle to take out a mortgage or start a family so here we need to use
having plus the past participle or the third form of the verbs such as decided
or taken you can also use the linkers such as before after since when while
with a participle phrase imagine we have a complex sentence when the government is
considering different options it should pay attention to their costs you see
the subject in both clauses is the government and we could say when
considering different options the government should pay attention to their
costs or before making a decision the government should consider all of the
options all these are great ways to vary your sentence structure and with the
variety of sentences I showed you in this video you can get band 8 or 9 for
your grammar if you use them correctly so don't forget to learn how to add a
relative clause to any sentence to make it complex in this video and how to use
different types of conditional sentences in this video thank you for watching me
today good luck with your preparation bye