In IELTS Writing Task 2, sentences like:

Smoking is bad.

Playing sports is good.

Children are watching too much TV.

Will definitely destroy your band score brutally. These sentences, as you can see, are too “modest” in length. In Speaking we can say short sentences, but in Writing we have to write long sentences.

Why does IELTS require writing long sentences?

IELTS is a test that simulates a candidate’s language ability. If candidates, despite their good English, only write short and speak briefly, the examiner will have no basis for assessing their language ability. Therefore, IELTS test takers always try to write or speak at length to have the “land” to show all their vocabulary and grammar.

How to write long sentences?

There are some very easy ways to turn a short sentence into a “fluffy prose” sentence in Task 2:

A. Explanation:

If you notice, the words “bad”, “good” and “too much” above do not tell the reader anything specific. If you are using these words, ask yourself “how bad?”, “how good?” and “how much is how much?”

If you think about it, you’ll find that you can be more thorough than:

Smoking => harmful to health

Playing sports => good for health

Too much TV => more than should be done

So, we can rewrite the sentence as:

Smoking is bad for health

Playing sports is good for health

Children are watching TV far more often than they should.

B. Supporting words

Similar to the above explanation principle, we can lengthen sentences by supplementing existing words, for example:

Smoking? Smoking like?

=> Frequent smoking

(?) Frequent is there another way to say it longer?

=> Smoking on a regular basis is bad for health

Playing sports? Sports what?

=> Playing competitive sports

(?) playing is too simple?

=> Participating in a number of competitive sports is good for health

Note, with plural nouns, you can use “many” words such as: a number of, various, a variety of, …

Children? Which children? => Children before secondary school

are watching TV far more often than they should.

C. Using relative clauses

Relative clauses (which, who, that, whose, whom, …) are very easy tools to use to extend sentences. You would simply use a relative clause to extend the meaning of a noun, or an entire sentence. For example:

Smoking, an activitywhich most men in Vietnam do everyday

, is bad for health Playing competitive sports which involves a lot of physical activities

is good for health

Expanding to the whole sentence:

Children are watching TV far more often than they should,

which affects their mind and body in a negative way.

D. Returns the “owner” to the noun

The principle is actually the same as the explanation. You can, instead of just naming the noun, attach a certain possessive to the noun. For example:

Smoking is bad forpeople’s health

. Playing sports is good for

children’s health.

These are 4 common methods to expand sentences both in terms of meaning as well as word count. You can use only 1, or you can combine 2,3, even all 4 methods to write sentences. However, it should be noted not to abuse these methods to create confusing sentences, explaining unnecessary things.