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We get asked this a lot by both students and IELTS teachers.  Coherence and Cohesion is one of the 4 criteria that you are marked on in your IELTS writing.

But what are they?

We thought we would show you in a clear way.

IELTS writing is like a river, with a start and a finish.  Coherence is like a guide boat on the river

that is showing you the way.

There is

• a clear start and finish
• clear paragraphing
• a logical structure

Now Cohesion is slightly different.  Cohesion is like the cement in a brick wall. 

It holds your sentences together.

These may be things like

• conjunctions to link sentences together
• pronouns to refer back to ideas
• substituting words to avoid repetition.

Together, they make your essay flow from start to finish so that the reader can follow what you have written.  They are very important and a Band 9.0 piece of writing has Coherence and Cohesion so high that it isn’t noticeable to the reader; in basically the same way that you would read in your own language.

Things that we often see in candidates’ writing

1)  Poor referencing.  For example

“Children find it difficult and he cannot understand it”  (English has no gender so you need to use ‘they’ here to refer to ‘children’.

2)  Poor linking.  For example

“Even he isn’t very good, he tries hard”  (Many candidates forget to add ‘though’ to ‘even though’)

3)  Poor paragraphing.  Some candidates write a very long introduction; as long as their body paragraphs or they write a very long body paragraph 1 but a very short body paragraph 2.  This show imbalance

4)  Poor substitution or missed opportunities for substitution.  For example, compare

“I hate smoking and my wife hates smoking too”

“I hate smoking and so does my wife”

These all affect your Coherence and Cohesion mark and can stop you getting passed Band 6.

If you want your IELTS writing assessed by an IELTS examiner so they can show you what you need to do to get higher marks; you can order one here.  If you want to get in touch and ask us your IELTS questions, you can do so here.  We will be happy to hear from you.