How can you achieve this? Learn to check for mistakes

The one thing that will not work is writing very simple language and only concentrate on not making mistakes. You need to a range of grammar too remember. What it does mean is:

• you almost certainly need a teacher to check your writing and tell you where you make mistakes
• you need to build a checklist of the type of mistakes you make – most people have their “own” mistakes and it also makes sense to concentrate on common bits of grammar like “countables” and “uncountables” as you will use these in every sentence.
• you need to understand that grammar is more than just verb tenses: it includes things like word order too
• you need to learn to check your own writing (my personal suggestion is that you don’t leave this to the end of the essay when you are tired, but you check as you go)

How can you achieve this? Think before you write

As a teacher, I find that a large proportion of students mistakes are made not because they don’t know the grammar, but rather because they got the writing process wrong. They write. They stop. They think. They write again. The first bit of the sentence is okay and so’s the second bit. It’s just that the two halves don’t match. You may be surprised by how many mistakes you avoid by knowing how you want to end the sentence before you start writing it.

How can you achieve this? Use plain English

I said above that you should not use too simple English. That is true. What is also true, however, is that it makes sense to avoid complicated English as well – it is only likely to cause more mistakes. This is not just good advice for the exam, it is good advice for life too (Macmillan dictionary page and Michael McCarthy a leading academic).

Some basics for writing plainer English

• avoid long, long sentences (20 words is a long sentence, unless its structure is very simple)
• don’t forget the basic S-V-O structure of English and think word order (many mistakes in more complex sentences happen when the subject gets separated from the verb)
• try verbs instead of abstract nouns where you can
• be careful with relative clauses and other complex structures (one relative is more than enough for each sentence)
• try and formulate the whole sentence in your head before you start writing. If you can’t, it may be that the sentence is not complex but complicated – not a good thing