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Coherence and Cohesion: The IELTS Writing Criterion That's Often Not Properly Explained

Every IELTS candidate has heard the words "Coherence and Cohesion." Ahh, yes, the linking words. Well, it's much more than that.

Coherence and Cohesion is one of the four criteria the examiner uses to mark your Writing, and it decides a quarter of your Writing band. Task Response is another quarter. Lexical Resource is the third. Grammatical Range and Accuracy is the fourth. Coherence and Cohesion, though, is the one where candidates lose the most marks without understanding why, because it's often overlooked by teachers. 

Here is what it actually measures:

Coherence is what happens at the paragraph level, while cohesion is what happens between sentences within a paragraph. When an examiner scans your essay from a distance, they are checking coherence. When they read line by line, they are checking cohesion. You need both, and the fixes are different for each.

Coherence: three things the examiner reads for before they read a word

The first is paragraphs. Each idea group gets its own paragraph, not one long block and not one sentence per line. The second is balance. Both sides of the argument get real space, and a one-sided essay caps Coherence at Band 5, no matter how well you write. The third is progression. Ideas build on each other, and later paragraphs connect back to earlier ones and to your thesis.

None of these depend on your vocabulary. They are all about the shape of the essay. Which brings us to the most common trap.

Why "firstly, secondly, finally" is a Band 5 signature

If you have ever written an IELTS essay body that reads "Firstly, cars cause pollution. Secondly, they cause traffic. Thirdly, they are expensive. Finally, they need parking," you are in very common company. It is the single most common structural pattern I see from candidates studying for their first attempt.

The problem is not that ordinals are grammatically wrong. The problem is that they are a substitute for structure, not structure itself. When an examiner reads those four sentences, they see four disconnected claims stacked on top of each other. The candidate feels organised, but the examiner sees a Band 5 essay body.

Here is what a Band 7 candidate writes instead.

"Cars cause pollution, which in turn worsens urban air quality. This problem is compounded by traffic congestion, which costs commuters hours each week."

The ideas are the same. The claims are the same. What has changed is that "which in turn" and "This problem" now carry the reader from one idea to the next. Each sentence builds on the previous one. That is coherence at the sentence level, and it is what earns the marks.

Cohesion: the three-level linker ladder

Now to the visible layer. Linking words are divided into seven categories, and each category has three levels: basic, intermediate, and advanced.

Take addition, for instance.

At the basic level, you write "and", "also", "too."

At the intermediate level, you write "furthermore", "moreover."

At the advanced level, you reach for "to further elaborate", "in the same vein."

Each level pushes your Lexical Resource score up one notch.

Contrast follows the same pattern.

Basic linkers include "but" and "however."

Intermediate ones include "on the other hand" and "in contrast."

Advanced ones include "conversely," "notwithstanding," and "whereas."

Cause and effect moves from

"so" and "because" through "therefore"

and "as a result" to

"hence," "thus," and "accordingly."

The other four categories work the same way, from sequencing and exemplification through emphasis and summarising (check out the full list in the video). What the examiner rewards is not exclusive use of advanced linkers, which reads unnatural. What they reward is range. If you rotate all three levels across a Task 2 essay and place at least one advanced linker per body paragraph, you have cleared the Band 7 threshold for cohesion vocabulary.

The invisible layer: reference chains

There is a second half of cohesion that most IELTS teaching skips entirely. Reference chains.

Read this sentence: "Governments have raised fuel taxes across most of Europe. This policy has cut urban emissions but raised rural transport costs sharply."

The word "This" carries the whole previous sentence forward, without a linker in sight. That is a reference chain, made from a pronoun.

Reference chains also come as group nouns, which name the previous idea explicitly. Something like: "Many students memorise sample answers before the exam. This approach rarely works, because examiners recognise pre-learned material immediately."

"This approach" names the idea, and the reference to the previous sentence becomes unmistakable. Examiners at Band 7 and above actively look for these constructions. They are the sign that a candidate can carry an idea across multiple sentences without repeating themselves.

The rule that follows all of this

Plan your paragraphs before you write. Rotate your linkers across all three levels. Use pronouns and group nouns to link ideas across sentences instead of ordinals. Those three moves make up the whole shape of Coherence and Cohesion at Band 7, and anything else you learn about the criterion sits on top of them.

The recording of Sunday's Coherence and Cohesion session is now on the site with the rest of the series. All Writing Masterclass recordings are free while the series is live. They move to the paid archive on October 5, so if you have not already worked through the earlier sessions, this is your last window.

In next Sunday's final session, I turn from structure to vocabulary. Session 7 is The Vocabulary Holding You Back, the series closer. The words candidates over-rely on, the ones they never think to use, and why the vocabulary you have is holding your score down. Every attendee also gets a downloadable PDF checklist covering the whole seven-session Masterclass.

Sunday, September 20, at 11:00 AM Dubai and 9:00 AM Serbia. Free to attend while the series is live.

Ivan

How to Describe Charts in IELTS Task 1: The Vocabulary That Actually Scores

Most IELTS candidates I have worked with can tell me exactly what a Task 1 chart shows. They are able to the trend, they can name the highest bar, and they can spot where the line dropped and where it rose again. The problem is not in how they read the chart but in how they translate what they see into English. When they do, they reach for the same six words every time: went up, went down, stayed the same, was more than, was less than, and finally.

That is a Band 5 vocabulary set, and it caps most Task 1 answers no matter how accurate the numbers are.

The examiner reads Task 1 for two things: the overview and the verbs.

The overview is a single sentence that names the shape of the whole chart. Without one, your Task Achievement score is capped at Band 5, which is not opinion or teaching preference but how the mark scheme works. The overview mentions the main trend or the main contrast, covers the whole chart rather than one section, and contains no specific numbers. Those belong in the body paragraphs.

The verbs are the second half of the score. Every time a chart shows something moving, the examiner is looking for a precise verb paired with an appropriate adverb. That combination is where the Lexical Resource marks come from, and it is where most candidates leave marks on the table.

Here is how the same trend can be described at two different bands.

Imagine a line chart showing subscriber numbers for two streaming platforms over five years. Platform X rose steadily for the first four years, then held flat. Platform Y dropped sharply in the second year, then climbed back and overtook Platform X by the end.

A Band 5 description of that chart reads like this: "Platform X went up every year and then stayed the same. Platform Y went down a lot at the beginning and then went up again."

That description is technically correct and every claim in it is true. But the verbs are the same set the examiner has read a thousand times, and there is no overview to anchor the whole answer. Task Achievement caps at Band 5, and Lexical Resource caps at Band 6.

Here is the Band 7 rebuild. First, the overview: "Over the period, Platform Y overtook Platform X to become the market leader, despite an early setback." Then the body: "Platform X's subscribers rose steadily to 2023 before plateauing. Platform Y, by contrast, plummeted in year two before rebounding sharply."

The upgrade comes from four decisions: adding the overview sentence, replacing "went up" with "rose steadily," replacing "stayed the same" with "plateauing," and replacing "went down a lot" with "plummeted."

The rule that follows is worth writing down.

Every trend gets a verb from the strong end of its family, and every trend verb takes an adverb where one adds meaning. Rise and fall are the safe middle. Surge, soar, plummet, plunge, plateau, and rebound are the words that lift the Lexical Resource score. Sharply, steadily, gradually, and significantly are the adverbs that pair with those verbs to describe rate and degree.

Some of these verbs already carry their meaning without an adverb. Plummeted does not need "sharply" to communicate a fast drop, because the verb itself already means fast. Plateaued does not need "steadily" for a flat stretch, because the verb itself already means flat. Learning which verbs work alone and which want an adverb is half the work of a Band 7 Task 1 answer.

In application, this changes how you plan the answer.

Instead of writing the report and then hoping the vocabulary comes out right, spend one minute after reading the chart to note down the movements you will need to describe: the rises, the falls, the flat stretches, the sudden changes. Then choose the verb for each one before you write a sentence. If you know you have a sharp drop to describe, decide on plummeted or plunged first, then build the sentence around it. The overview comes at the very start, in one sentence, based on the shape you have just mapped.

Done in that order, the vocabulary problem stops being a problem.

The recording of Sunday's session is now on the site with the rest of the series.

In next Sunday's free webinar, I turn from vocabulary to structure. Session 6 is Coherence and Cohesion, the IELTS criterion nobody explains properly. What linking words actually count, why "firstly, secondly, finally" is a Band 5 signature, and how to organise ideas so an examiner can follow you without effort.

Sunday, September 6, at 11:00 AM Dubai and 9:00 AM Serbia. Free to attend while the series is live.

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Teacher Ivan