There are many free IELTS materials and websites available but the quality varies. This page shows you where to find reliable resources to improve IELTS Writing.
Please let me know in the comments if you find anything useful that you think I should add.
Get the free PDF with all the links.
See also:
IELTS writing materials – general advice
Skillsyouneed.com/writeAn A-Z of Writing Skills (click on the areas you need to practise).
EAP Foundation takes you through different aspects of Academic Writing, like essay types, style and paraphrasing.
British Council Learn English Teens has excellent Task 1 and 2 colour-coded models like this For/Against essay about the internet.
WriteandImprove.com uses technology developed at the University of Cambridge to mark your writing. The first one is free.
The UEFAP.com site (Using English for Academic Purposes) looks old-fashioned, but it still provides basic and useful information e.g. how to use signal words and different types of cohesion.
Manchester University Phrasebank – lots of help for Academic Writing
IELTS writing resources to get feedback
Analyzemywriting.com – ‘an online text content and readability analyzer. Copy and paste a text into the homepage and gain a wealth of information about your text including word and character counts, word and sentence lengths, the readability of your text, and other analyses’.
Virtual Writing Tutor (virtualwritingtutor.com) checks your writing for free.
Wordtune is a Google Chrome Extension that offers alternatives for any sentence you highlight.
Free IELTS Writing materials to improve VOCABULARY
These sites focus on the Academic Word List:
The Academic Word List (AWL) – PDF version and sublists
Academic Word List – with all forms (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs)
Academic Word List Practice Exercises – another good place to practice.
A-Z of formal and informal synonyms – the Plain English Campaign
Free IELTS Writing materials for collocations
English Club has a fantastic A – Z of collocations
Collocation Checker – Just the word
SKELL – helps you find words that go together and synonyms
Word Hippo – a kind of thesaurus an SO much more.
Snapstudy app makes flashcards from photos of text, so just take a photo of a model essay and create a set of revision cards on your phone.
Free Spelling and Punctuation guides
A simple guide and ‘Brushing up’ workbook for spelling rules
Simple punctuation guide
Free IELTS materials for getting ideas
British Council Video Zone
ScientificAmerican.com/podcasts A useful podcast with 1-minute IELTS-style articles
TubeQuizard is a fabulous place to do exercises based on well-chosen YouTube videos.
I really love these bite-sized Academic English mini-lectures on YouTube by Mike Gibson. All of the topics are very IELTS-focused.
Improve your vocabulary through Reading and Listening with these awesome sites:
(student subscription to Newsela and CommonLit included in the Members Academy)
Free IELTS apps and websites
- Ludwig guru – ‘a search engine that helps you write better English by giving you contextualised examples from reliable sources’.
- Lexico does something similar – it gives you lots of sentences with the word in context so you can see how it’s used (not just the meaning).
Free Grammar Practice for IELTS
- The well-known coursebook, English File, has its own site with lots of graded grammar practice
- This German site gives clear examples and useful exercises (it’s not in German though, don’t worry!)
- English Club has a great grammar section with lots of quizzes.
Free Academic Writing Practice for University
- Verbs for citation (PDF – nice simple list)
- The CRAAP method for evaluation sources.
- Academic Writing advice for students (University of Toronto downloadable PDFs)
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