Why does an essay that says everything the question asks still land at a 6.5 when the writer expected a 7? Very often the answer isn’t structure or ideas at all. It’s the fine texture of the language: word choices, sentence lengths, small habits of phrasing that a candidate has repeated so many times they no longer notice them. The two descriptors that pick these up, Lexical Resource and Grammatical Range and Accuracy, reward control rather than ambition. Below are the wording habits that quietly cap those scores, and what to do about each.
Reaching for big words you cannot control
A candidate who writes “myriad” instead of “many” or “utilise” instead of “use” often believes bigger vocabulary lifts the band. It usually does the opposite. An impressive word used with the wrong preposition, the wrong collocation, or in a context where it simply doesn’t fit reads as an error, and errors are exactly what pull Lexical Resource down. Examiners can tell the difference between a word you own and a word you borrowed for the occasion. A plain word placed correctly beats a rare word placed clumsily every time.
Memorised phrases that examiners recognise instantly
Openers like “It is a well-known fact that” or “Since the dawn of time, humans have” appear in so many essays that they carry no information at all. Examiners across testing centres, from Sydney to smaller regional venues in New South Wales, see them daily, and a chunk of pre-learned filler tells them nothing about your real ability. Worse, memorised sentences often sit awkwardly against the specific prompt, revealing that you’re reciting rather than responding. Learning genuine flexibility, such as the reasoning patterns explained at https://careerwiseenglish.com.au/, gives you framing you can adapt on the day instead of phrases you drop in unchanged. The aim is a sentence that clearly answers this question, not one that could open any essay ever written.
Repeating the same connectors until they lose meaning
“Moreover” at the start of three consecutive paragraphs, “Furthermore” in the middle of each, “In addition” to round things off. When a linking word appears that often, it stops signalling anything and starts sounding mechanical. Cohesion is scored on whether relationships between ideas are clear, not on how many connectors you can list. Sometimes the cleanest link is no connector at all, just two sentences whose logic is obvious. Over-signposting is as visible a fault as under-signposting.
Why ‘in a nutshell’ and other informal slips cost you
Task 2 is a semi-formal register, and casual expressions break it. “In a nutshell,” “at the end of the day,” “a lot of,” “kids,” “stuff,” and contractions like “don’t” all read as too conversational for the essay you’re supposed to be writing. These slips rarely cause a single dramatic drop, but they accumulate, and an examiner weighing a borderline script will notice a tone that keeps sliding out of formality.
Long sentences that collapse under their own grammar
Trying to prove grammatical range, many candidates write sentences that run for four lines, stacking clause on clause until subject and verb lose track of each other. What arrives is a tangle of missing commas, mismatched tenses, and a main verb that never appears. Grammatical Range and Accuracy rewards variety that stays correct. A short, precise sentence next to a well-built complex one shows far more control than one endless sentence that never quite resolves.
Confusing complexity with clarity in every paragraph
The habit underneath most of the above is a belief that harder-looking writing scores higher. It doesn’t. The band descriptors ask whether the reader can follow you effortlessly. If a marker has to re-read a sentence to work out what you meant, that hesitation counts against you no matter how sophisticated the wording looked. Clarity is not the beginner’s setting; it’s what a band 8 script actually delivers, with complexity used only where it serves the point.
Fixing your expression without a native ear to catch it
The trouble with these habits is that they feel correct from the inside. You cannot flag a collocation error you don’t know is an error, or hear a register slip that sounds normal to you. Reading model answers aloud, comparing your phrasing against them, and getting a second reader who knows the standard all help surface what self-review misses.
Left unchecked, these habits don’t just cost one point once. They repeat in every paragraph you write, and they will follow you into the exam room unless you train them out first.