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A Conclusion That Adds Nothing New
I was sitting in a cramped exam hall last Tuesday, the smell of stale coffee and nervous sweat hanging heavy in the air, watching a student stare blankly at their final page. They had written a brilliant, nuanced argument for forty minutes, only to spend the final three minutes frantically scribbling, “In conclusion, I have
Phrasal Verbs and Word Order
I’ve sat in hundreds of exam prep classrooms, watching brilliant, high-achieving adults stare at a sentence like it’s written in ancient hieroglyphics. They’ve studied grammar for years, yet they freeze the moment a verb decides to pick up a particle and change its entire personality. Most textbooks try to explain how phrasal verbs work by
A Paragraph With One Idea
I was sitting in a dim exam hall last Tuesday, staring at a stack of essays that felt more like collections of random sentences than actual arguments. It’s a scene I’ve played out for nineteen years: a bright, capable student loses half their marks not because their English is poor, but because they have no
Learning Which Verb Takes Which
I’ve spent nineteen years watching bright, capable adults stare blankly at a list of gerunds and infinitives, wondering why they can’t just “memorize” their way to a passing grade. Most textbooks will tell you to spend hours drilling endless, disconnected lists, but that is a complete waste of your time. If you are looking for
Verbs Followed by Ing or to
I can still see the look on my student’s face last Tuesday—that specific, crushing moment of realization when they saw their essay score. They had the vocabulary of a scholar and the logic of a philosopher, yet they were bleeding points because they couldn’t decide between “suggest doing” and “suggest to do.” Most textbooks will
Hedging Without Sounding Vague
I was sitting in my small office last Tuesday, staring at a stack of IELTS essays, when I saw it again: another student claiming that “social media always causes depression.” It’s that same, aggressive certainty that I’ve seen hundreds of times over my nineteen years of teaching. These students think they are being bold and
Conceding Then Refuting
I remember sitting in a cramped, dimly lit seminar room fifteen years ago, watching a brilliant student—someone who clearly knew their subject inside out—completely dismantle their own essay. They had spent three pages building a perfect argument, only to spend the final paragraph essentially agreeing with the opposing view. They thought they were being “nuanced,”
Shortening a Clause With a Participle
I was sitting in a dimly lit exam hall last Tuesday, watching a student stare at a blank page, when I saw it again: the classic, heavy-handed attempt to sound “academic” that actually just made their writing unreadable. They had been told that knowing how to use participle clauses is the golden ticket to a
Claims, Evidence and Counterarguments
I’ve sat in countless exam halls, watching brilliant, hardworking adults stare at a prompt with absolute dread, thinking they need a PhD in philosophy just to pass. They think they need flowery, complex vocabulary to impress the examiner, but let me tell you: that is a lie. Most students fail not because their ideas are
The Comma That Changes the Meaning
I was sitting in a quiet exam hall last Tuesday, the only sound the rhythmic scratching of pens, when I saw it again. A student—brilliant, clearly well-read—had just written a sentence that was technically grammatical but logically messy, losing marks simply because they didn’t know how to use commas with relative clauses correctly. It’s that