Stuck at Band 6 in IELTS Writing? Replace Vague Examples to Boost Your Score

When finishing IELTS Writing Task 2, what frustrates most test takers isn't a lack of words, but the fact that every example seems like they are just crowding the page to meet the requirement.

"Many people are affected." "The government should take measures." "Some countries have already done this." These sentences don't have major grammatical errors, and they don't seem completely off-topic, yet after reading them, the examiner has absolutely no idea who, where, or what actually happened.

When examples are too vague, your opinions just seem to float in mid-air. Your essay might get a Band 6, but anyone trying to push for 6.5 or 7 will hit an obvious ceiling.

Vague examples typically center around one big word

I look at many students' essays, and introductory paragraphs often feature words like people, society, the government, many countries, and young people. These are just scope words; the reader cannot see specific people or events.

For instance: Many young people spend too much time on social media, which is bad for their health.

The problem isn't that the sentence is short, but that it lacks actions and results. Does "spending time" mean scrolling videos, chatting, or reading news? Does "health getting worse" mean lack of sleep, tired eyes, or not having time to exercise? The reader cannot visualize it further.

It can be changed to: A university student who checks short videos before bed may stay awake for another hour, so he sleeps less and feels tired in the morning class.

Here, we have a university student, scrolling short videos before bed, staying up an extra hour, and feeling tired the next morning. We haven't used intentionally difficult vocabulary, but the scene has become clear.

A good example needs four small parts

When writing examples, I first flesh out four questions on my draft: Who? Where? What did they do? What was the result?

"Government promoting public transport" can be written as: In a city with heavy traffic, the local government can offer cheaper bus tickets and add more routes. Office workers may then leave their cars at home, which reduces the number of vehicles during rush hour.

This paragraph doesn't use particularly advanced words, but it has character, location, measure, and result.

If you don't want to name a specific city, you can use a phrase like "a large city," "a secondary school," or "a small business." You can keep the scope, but the actions and results need to come down to earth.

Examples should follow the explanation

A common structure for a body paragraph is view-point, explanation, example, and linkback. Make the reason clear first; putting the example after the explanation will flow more smoothly.

For example, if the topic is that schools should teach financial literacy. You can develop it like this:

Students need basic financial knowledge because they may start making independent decisions soon after leaving school. A teenager who learns how to plan a monthly budget is less likely to spend all of their part-time income on unnecessary products. This small skill can help them avoid debt when they begin university or work.

The first sentence is the view, the second explains why, the third gives the character and action, and the final sentence returns to the real-life result. It will feel much more solid this way.

Many people, upon seeing a cue word like "For example," immediately write four or five sentences, losing the explanation for the whole paragraph in the process. Examples should support the view, not steal the spotlight from the main paragraph.

Practice with Youshow IELTS to turn vague examples into specific ones

You can extract the examples from your essays separately for review. Write down the four elements of character, location, action, and result next to each example. If one is missing, fill it in. It is much easier to see problems doing this than copying a page of advanced vocabulary.

The Youshow IELTS app has IELTS writing practice, model essay references, and mistake review. You can try writing a body paragraph first, then check the logic of your examples. After practicing, you can visit the website https://ielts.youshowedu.com/en to see more IELTS learning content. Fixing 2 or 3 vague examples a day will quickly reveal which sentences only look complete.

You don't need to invent big news stories or stack difficult words. A normal person, a specific action, and a result that explains your view are much more useful than generic phrases like "people are affected". If you want to move from Band 6 upwards in Writing Task 2, start by writing examples that the reader can actually see.