IELTS Writing Introduction Phrases: The Ones That Cost Nothing, and the Ones That Cost Marks

Almost every page on this query hands you the same list of opening phrases and tells you to pick one. That is half an answer. A phrase bank is useful, but only if it tells you which phrases are free and which ones are charged to your band score, because they are not all the same.

This page gives you the bank, split that way, for both Task 1 and Task 2. It then shows what 17 answers that have actually been scored opened with, and how the two groups scored differently.

What an introduction is marked on

There is no criterion called Introduction. Your opening sentences are marked by the same four criteria as everything else:

• Task Response, or Task Achievement in Task 1, whether you showed you understood the question and, in Task 2, stated your position
• Coherence and Cohesion, whether the opening sets up what follows
• Lexical Resource, your vocabulary range and accuracy
• Grammatical Range and Accuracy, your sentence range and grammar accuracy

This is why a phrase can be free or expensive. A phrase that reports what the question is about is doing Task Response work. A phrase that fills space before the question arrives is doing nothing, and the words inside it are still marked for accuracy. You are paying for the words either way. The question is whether they earn anything.

The Task 1 bank: these phrases are free

In Task 1 you describe what a visual shows, in at least 150 words in a suggested 20 minutes. The opening sentence reports the visual type, the subject, the places or groups, and the time period. The verb is the only part that needs a choice, and these verbs are all safe, because each one reports a fact that is on the page in front of you.

Two notes on using it.

First, illustrates and depicts are not better than shows. They are alternatives. A reader who sees depicts on a bar chart does not think your vocabulary is wider; they think you avoided compares, which was the word that reported the chart's actual job.

Second, do not write a second sentence. We counted the opening of every Task 1 Academic answer in the library and found all of them are a single sentence of 18 to 32 words, which is set out in the Task 1 introduction, one sentence and four facts.

The Task 1 bank: these phrases cost you

• The given graph and the provided chart. Harmless but empty. Given by whom? The graph is enough.
• It is clearly seen from the graph that. Nine words before any information. The grammar is also fragile; writers reach for it is clearly seen and produce it is clear seen.
• This essay will describe the graph. Task 1 is not an essay, and announcing the structure of a 150 word report wastes a fifth of it.
• Overall, we can conclude from the data that. Save the overview for its own sentence, and write it as a claim, not as an announcement that a claim is coming.
• Copying the prompt wording unchanged. Copied text is discounted, so a Task 1 opening that repeats the prompt verbatim leaves you with fewer of your own words to be marked on.

The Task 2 bank: the three slots that actually exist

Task 2 is an essay of at least 250 words in 40 minutes, and its introduction has exactly two jobs, which we set out in full in how to write an IELTS introduction in two sentences. Paraphrase the question. State your position. Any phrase that serves one of those two slots is worth its words.

Note what is missing from that table. There is no slot for a general opening remark, because there is nothing for one to do.

The Task 2 phrases that cost you, and the counted reason why

These are the ones to drop:

• Nowadays
• In today's modern world
• In this fast paced world
• It is an undeniable fact that
• People from all walks of life
• Since time immemorial
• This is a highly controversial topic widely debated among people

The usual argument against them is that examiners have seen them thousands of times, which is true and is the subject of the memorised phrases page. Here is a different kind of evidence.

Bandly's Task 2 sample library publishes 17 full answers with a band estimate for each criterion. We looked at the first sentence of each one and sorted them into two groups: those that open with a time or place phrase before reaching the subject, and those that open by naming the subject of the question in a noun phrase.

Every answer in the first group was estimated at 7.5 or above. Eleven of the thirteen in the second group were estimated at 7.0 or below.

These are machine estimates from Bandly's own engine, not marks from a qualified examiner, so read them as a pattern in one consistent set of judgements. And the phrase is almost certainly not the cause. An opening that names the subject in its first clause is a sign that the writer read the question properly and planned the answer; an opening that begins Nowadays is often a sign that the writer started typing before deciding what the answer was. The phrase is the symptom you can see from the outside.

That still makes it useful. If your own introductions start with a time phrase, the thing to check is not the phrase. It is whether you knew your position before you began the sentence.

Three rewrites

Task 2, from the tourism answer estimated at 6.5. As written:

In the recent years, tourism have grown very fast in many developing countries who need money to improve their economy.

Three problems: In the recent years is wrong as well as empty, tourism have is a subject verb agreement error in the first sentence of the essay, and countries who should be countries that. Rewritten:

Tourism has grown quickly in many developing countries that depend on it for economic growth.

Sixteen words instead of twenty, all three errors gone, and the subject arrives in the first word.

Task 2, from the social media answer estimated at 6.0. As written:

Nowadays, social media is very popular around the world.

Nothing here reports the question, which was about young people. Rewritten:

Social media now shapes how most young people spend their free time, and many parents and teachers believe the effect is harmful.

Task 1. Instead of:

It is clearly seen from the given graph that it provides information about electricity.

Write:

The line graph shows how household electricity use changed in four countries between 2000 and 2020.

In all three cases the replacement is shorter and says more. That is the whole test for an introduction phrase.

What to do today

1. Take your three most recent practice answers and read only the first sentence of each.
2. Count the words before the subject of the question appears. If it is more than six, cut everything in front of it.
3. For Task 2, check that your position is stated in the introduction, not saved for the conclusion. If it is not there, you are capped on Task Response however good the rest is.
4. For Task 1, check that your opening names the visual type, the subject and the time period, and that it is one sentence.
5. Read a worked opening at the band above yours. The answers on the band 7.5 hub all open in the first group above, and you can see the whole answer that follows.

Then test your own opening rather than trusting it. Paste your answer into Bandly and you will get a band estimate for each of the four criteria with the sentences each judgement rests on, which will tell you whether your introduction is carrying its words or spending them.