Grammatical Range · Task 1
Why "Yesterday I go" costs you a full band
Chinese verbs carry no tense marking, so when the mind switches to English the tense marker doesn't automatically follow. This produces a very specific error pattern that examiners are trained to spot immediately.
The error: "In 2005, teacher salaries are 48% of the budget. By 2015, this fall to 42%."
The fix from the book: Decide your tense during the SCORE SCAN step — before writing — and apply it consistently. Historical data ⇒ past simple. Then use every second sentence as a self-check.
Lexical Resource · Task 2
The four-character phrase trap (成语陷阱)
Direct translation of 成语 (four-character idioms) into English produces the "Chinglish" that examiners identify as unnatural collocation. The idiom is beautiful in Chinese — but its English translation is a Band 5 error.
The error: "Population is 人山人海 (people mountain people sea)." → "The population was people-mountain-people-sea."
The fix from the book: Teach collocation as fixed English pairs, not word-for-word substitution. Instead: "The area was densely populated" or "The venue was packed to capacity." This is Fix #6 in the Seven Highest-Impact Fixes.
Task Response · Task 2
"Some people say" is killing your Task Response
Chinese academic culture rewards balanced consideration before position-taking. IELTS Task Response rewards the opposite: state your position clearly, then defend it. The hedge that reads as thoughtful in Chinese reads as evasive in English.
The error: "Some people say tuition should be free. Some people say students should pay. I think both sides have their reasons."
The fix from the book: Commit early. Use the BLUEPRINT 1 introduction formula: "While proponents of X argue Y, I firmly maintain that Z, as [reason 1] and [reason 2] demonstrate." This is Fix #7 in the Seven Highest-Impact Fixes.
Grammatical Range · Speaking
The he/she slip you can’t hear yourself make
In spoken Mandarin, 他 (he), 她 (she) and 它 (it) are written with different characters but pronounced identically — all “tā”. Under exam pressure the tongue reaches for whichever comes first. It rarely blocks meaning, which is exactly why candidates never catch it. Examiners do, and it chips away at Grammatical Accuracy every time.
The error: “My mother taught me to cook. He is very patient with me.”
The fix from the book: Treat it as a habit to drill, not a gap in knowledge — you already know the rule, the tongue does not. When you prepare a Master Story about a specific person, fix their gender in your notes and consciously monitor every “he” and “she” as you speak.
Grammatical Range · Speaking
Why “She very tired” happens — and how to stop it
Mandarin links a subject straight to an adjective with no verb in between: 她很累 reads literally as “she very tired”. Carried into English, the “be” verb simply vanishes. Because it recurs in almost every sentence, it weighs heavily on Grammatical Accuracy — and fixing it lifts your score across the whole test at once.
The error: “She very tired.” · “The weather very hot today.” · “I interested in music.”
The fix from the book: Internalise one rule — every English clause needs a verb. If there is no action verb, you almost certainly need a form of be. “She is very tired.” · “The weather is very hot today.” · “I am interested in music.”
Lexical Resource · Speaking & Task 2
The openers that tell an examiner you memorised it
Certain openers are so heavily drilled in the domestic market that examiners associate them with rote preparation. They do not merely fail to impress — they actively hurt you, because they signal that whatever follows may be rehearsed rather than generated in the room.
The error: “With the development of society…” · “Every coin has two sides.” · “As is known to all…” · “Nowadays, with the rapid development of…”
The fix from the book: Swap each for natural, specific language: “As cities have grown…” · “There are clear trade-offs here.” · “It is widely acknowledged that…” · “These days…” The full replacement table is the Memorised-Phrase Flags list.
Fluency & Coherence · Speaking Part 3
Circling the question reads as evasive, not thoughtful
The deepest interference is not grammatical at all — it is rhetorical. Classical Chinese rhetoric often values a spiral approach: set the scene, supply context, let the main point emerge gradually or by implication. English academic discourse, and the Fluency & Coherence criterion in particular, expects the opposite — state the point first, then support it.
The error: A Part 3 answer with plenty of background that never lands a clear position, trusting the listener to infer your stance. Indirectness signals modesty in Chinese; it caps your Coherence score in English, however strong the vocabulary.
The fix from the book: F-E-E-L is the most direct correction of all — its very first move, F (Find the Core), makes you state your position before you explain or justify it. Using the framework is not merely organising ideas; it is overriding a first-language habit and delivering them in the order an examiner expects.
Lexical Resource · Speaking
These aren’t false friends — they’re confusable pairs
Worth correcting a piece of terminology that gets misused: a true false friend looks or sounds alike across two languages but means something different, which is common between related languages like English and French. Chinese and English share no script or sound system, so classic false friends are rare. The real danger is different — confusable English pairs and overextended words.
The error: “I am very boring.” · “I am very interesting in it.” · “The trip was very funny.” · “Can you borrow me a pen?”
The fix from the book: Learn each as a distinction, not a word. You feel bored; a thing is boring. You are interested; the topic is interesting. Fun means enjoyable; funny makes you laugh. You borrow from someone; you lend to someone.
Fluency & Coherence · Speaking
Silence is the only real mistake
A long, dead pause is the single most damaging thing you can do, because Fluency & Coherence rewards continuity. Every strong candidate blanks, mishears, or reaches for a word that will not come. What separates Band 7 from Band 6 is not avoiding those moments — it is recovering smoothly instead of freezing.
The error: Going quiet while you hunt for the word, then restarting the sentence from the beginning.
The fix from the book: Buy time out loud and keep moving. Mind blank: “That’s a really interesting question — let me think for a moment…” Missing word: “I’m not sure of the exact term, but it’s a kind of…” Grammar slip: self-correct briefly and move on — “…he go — sorry, he goes…”
Coherence and Cohesion · Task 2
Burying your point costs you Coherence, even when the ideas are good
Classical Chinese rhetoric builds toward the main point gradually, placing the conclusion at the end — 起承转合. English academic writing does the opposite. Examiners assessing Coherence & Cohesion expect every paragraph to announce its point in the first sentence, because they skim-read: your opening sentence is what tells them the paragraph has a single, clear idea.
The error: Long background across three or four sentences, with the actual point arriving last — or only implied.
The fix from the book: Lead with it. PEEC runs Point → Explain → Evidence → Connect: state your single main idea in sentence one, then give the reasoning, then the specific evidence, then link back to the question. Never save the main point for the end of the paragraph.
Coherence and Cohesion · Task 2
“Furthermore … Moreover … Additionally” is a Band 6 signal
Candidates are taught that linking words raise the Coherence score, so they stack them at the front of every paragraph. The effect is the opposite. Repeating the same connectors signals mechanical cohesion — a recognised Band 6 marker — because the links are decorating the essay rather than carrying its logic.
The error: “Furthermore…” opening body one, “Moreover…” opening body two, “Additionally…” opening body three. Also “more and more” (越来越) used repeatedly in place of varied phrasing.
The fix from the book: Do not use Furthermore, Moreover or Additionally more than once each in the entire essay. Then get most of your cohesion from the other three LINK types instead of connectors: in-paragraph reference (this, these, such, the former), noun substitution (children → young learners → these individuals), and one deliberate keyword echo from the question. For “more and more”, use an increasing number of or increasingly.
Coherence and Cohesion · Task 2
Why the example should come after the reasoning
Most paragraph structures taught in classrooms — PEEL, TEEL — put Evidence before Explanation. PEEC reverses it deliberately, and this is the single detail that most changes how a paragraph reads. IELTS rewards reasoning over illustration. Explain your logic first and the example becomes support; lead with the example and the example becomes the argument.
The error: Point, then straight to “For example, in China…” — leaving the examiner to infer the reasoning that connects the example to the claim.
The fix from the book: Answer why or how your point is true before you illustrate it. And note what counts as Evidence: a statistic is not required — a specific, believable example scores just as well, and in Cause & Solution essays the “evidence” is often the mechanism showing how the cause produces the problem.