Grammar for ielts writing a handbook by David S. Wills Contents

Parts of Speech

---

4
need to master the simple sentence before they can try the complex sentence. 
Even when you get to the more advanced grammatical structures, you should be 
thinking in terms of parts of speech. 
Let’s take the IELTS reading exam for an example. If you are reading a pas-
sage about trees and you come to the phrase “deciduous trees,” how can parts of 
speech help you? Well, “trees” is, of course, a noun. Clearly, “deciduous” is giving 
some information about the tree. Therefore, it is an adjective. We can then start 
to work out that “deciduous” must be a kind of tree and look for clues in the text 
as to what exactly a deciduous tree is. When we produce English for the speaking 
and writing exams, we can take model language and build it up similarly so that 
the production of language feels natural. For example, adjectives usually appear 
before the noun they describe. 
Looking at the Parts of Speech
Let’s now take each of the 8 parts of speech in turn and explore its meaning.
Noun
Definition: A person, place, idea, or thing
Example: France, a mountain, Steven, sheep, socialism
Sentences:
The moon is bright.
John is reading that book.
Pronoun
Definition: A pronoun replaces a noun. Sometimes this is done to avoid
repetition. 
Example: he, his, her, I, we
Sentences: 
They wanted us to go with them.
He asked her to the dance but she said no.
Grammar for IELTS Writing

---

5
Adjective
Definition: An adjective describes, changes, or gives extra information
about a noun or pronoun.
Example: long, high, red, fast, British, angry
Sentences:
The tall man looked at the beautiful woman.
The slow car stopped by the big supermarket.
Note:
There are different kinds of adjectives:
1. Descriptive (ie. difficult, cheap)
2. Proper (ie. Japanese, Italian)
3. Quantitative (ie. some, many)
and so on…
Adverb
Definition: An adverb describes a verb, adjective, or even another adverb.
They 
often 
end 
in 
“-ly”. 
Example: quickly, silently, cunningly, amusingly, frankly, eventfully, coyly 
Sentences:
She quickly ran out to get help.
He drove carefully to the village.
Verb
Definition: A verb is usually an action, but may also indicate a state of
being.
Examples: think, run, dance, sing, believe
Sentences: 
He studies English so he can go to America.
They think they can beat their rivals.