Grammar
Invisible to the candidate, marked every single time. With an error correction exercise.
Gerunds and infinitives in IELTS are strange in one respect: candidates almost never notice the errors. Suggest to do sounds perfectly reasonable, and there is no rule you can work out from first principles to tell you it is wrong.
That is because these are patterns rather than rules. The verb decides what follows it, which means the pattern has to be learned with the word, exactly as a collocation is.
The rules
Six groups. Learn the verb and its pattern together, never separately.
Avoid, suggest, consider, involve, enjoy, risk, mind, practise, deny, recommend. These take the gerund: governments should consider introducing a charge.
Decide, agree, aim, tend, refuse, hope, manage, afford, fail, choose. These take the infinitive: many countries have failed to reduce emissions.
Interested in learning, responsible for managing, instead of building, capable of solving. There is no exception to this one, which makes it worth relying on.
The to in look forward to, be used to and object to is a preposition, not part of an infinitive. So it is look forward to hearing, never look forward to hear, which appears in a great many GT letters.
Stop smoking means you gave it up; stop to smoke means you paused in order to smoke. Remember to lock the door is a task ahead of you; remember locking it is a memory of doing it.
Learning a language takes several years. The gerund is singular, so the verb has no plural form, and this construction opens a Task 2 paragraph cleanly.
Method
Six ways this earns marks under Grammatical Range and Accuracy.
Never learn suggest alone. Learn suggest doing. The pattern is part of the word in the same way that a collocation is.
It has no exceptions. If a preposition comes first, the -ing form follows, and that covers a large share of the decisions you have to make.
I look forward to hearing from you is the standard close of a GT letter, and the wrong version is one of the most repeated errors in the task.
A small group of verbs does nearly all the work in IELTS answers. Master those and the remaining errors become rare.
If you cannot remember which pattern a verb takes, use a different verb you are sure of. An accurate simple sentence beats a guessed pattern.
Stop, remember, forget, try and regret change meaning with the pattern, so the wrong choice is not just an error but a different statement.
Practice
Each sentence contains one error. Choose the correction.
Read the whole sentence before you choose. Every option below is a real form of English, so the question is not which word exists but which one this sentence needs.
This is how examiners see your writing: not as rules broken, but as sentences that do or do not work.
1Correct the error: The report suggests to introduce a congestion charge in the city centre.
Suggests introducing. Suggest takes the gerund. It is one of the most frequently mishandled verbs in Task 2, largely because the wrong version sounds so reasonable.
2Correct the error: I look forward to hear from you at your earliest convenience.
To hearing. The to in look forward to is a preposition, so the gerund follows. This exact sentence closes thousands of GT letters, usually in the wrong form.
3Correct the error: Many students are interested in study abroad after graduating.
In studying. After any preposition the -ing form is required. This rule has no exceptions, which makes it the most reliable one on the page.
4Correct the error: Governments have failed reducing carbon emissions significantly.
Failed to reduce. Fail takes the infinitive. Alongside decide, agree, aim, tend and refuse, it belongs to the group that never takes the gerund.
5Correct the error: Learn a second language take several years of consistent effort.
Learning a second language takes. A gerund is needed as the subject, and it is singular, so the verb takes the third-person s.
6Which sentence means the driver paused in order to have a cigarette?
He stopped to smoke. With stop, the infinitive gives the purpose of stopping and the gerund names the thing given up. Remember, forget and try work the same way.
That is normal, and it is the whole problem with grammar study. Recognising an error in a sentence someone has told you contains one is far easier than finding it in your own essay, where every sentence looks correct because you wrote it.
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Choosing the right option from four is not the same as producing the structure accurately under time in an essay.
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Suggest doing. It is one of the most common verb pattern errors in IELTS writing, and there is no rule behind it, only the pattern.
Because that to is a preposition, not part of an infinitive, so the gerund must follow: look forward to hearing.
Not a reliable one. The pattern has to be learned with the verb, which is why a list of about twenty common verbs is worth more than any rule.
Yes, and the meaning changes: stop, remember, forget, try and regret. Choosing the wrong one makes a different statement, not just an error.
Yes. Reducing traffic requires investment is correct and takes a singular verb, and it is a clean way to open a paragraph.
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