A reference is not a study plan
Raymond Murphy's English Grammar in Use is organised by grammatical topic, in a sensible order, with one unit per point — 145 units, each a left-hand page of explanation facing a right-hand page of exercises. That is exactly right for a reference: a book you look things up in when you are unsure.
And working through it front to back is the most common thing candidates do with it. It is also the one thing its author tells you not to do:
So the thesis of this article is not our correction of Murphy. It is Murphy's own instruction, printed on page viii and ignored by almost everybody who owns the book.
He even built the diagnostic, and shouts about it on every page
There is a Study guide at the back — a set of check-yourself questions that tells you which units you actually need. Murphy puts a line in the running header of page after page: "If you are not sure which units you need to study, use the Study guide on page 326." It is one of the most-repeated sentences in the book, and it is the one nobody reads. Start there rather than at Unit 1.
What the Study guide cannot tell you — and this is where we would add something
The Study guide answers one question: do you know this? It does not answer the other one: does not knowing it cost you a band? Those are different questions, and only the second one matters when you have six weeks.
A diagnostic ranks by wrong. A candidate needs to rank by expensive. Murphy's guide will flag your article errors exactly as enthusiastically as it flags your tense errors — and one of those two is quietly costing you a band while the other is being forgiven on sight. So use his guide to find the errors, then use the ranking below to decide the order.
The expensive errors — study these first
These break meaning, or delete information the examiner is listening for. They are where your band is actually being lost.
| Error | Why it costs | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Tense in a sequence | It changes when things happened. The listener has to rebuild the timeline. | Yesterday I go to the shop and I am buying bread. |
| Dropped -s / -ed | Deletes number and tense. Costs pronunciation and grammar at the same time for many speakers. | She work here · I walk home yesterday |
| Subject–verb agreement | Basic, visible, and frequent. | The data shows / The people is |
| Word order in questions | Breaks the sentence outright. | Can you tell me where is the station? |
| Run-ons and comma splices (writing) | Punctuation is inside the grammar criterion, and this is the single most common error in IELTS essays. | Pollution is serious, it affects everyone. |
| Countable / uncountable | Very common, and it changes the determiner. | many informations · an advice · researches |
Then: the structures that add range
Fixing errors gets you accuracy. It does not get you a 7, because the criterion is Grammatical Range and Accuracy — and flawless simple sentences show no range at all.
So the second phase is not error-hunting. It is acquiring structures you can deploy on purpose.
| Structure | Why it pays |
|---|---|
| Conditionals (especially the unreal) | The highest-value structure in the test. IELTS questions invite it constantly: If governments invested more, fewer people would drive. |
| Relative clauses (which, who) | Cheap complexity. Adds a clause to almost any sentence. |
| Although / while (concession) | Signals a real argument, not just a list of opinions. |
| Perfect tenses | I've been meaning to… Natural, and marks a wider range. |
| Passive | Required in Task 1 process descriptions, and a complex structure everywhere else. |
Learn two conditional patterns until they are automatic and you will produce complex grammar in almost every answer, without anything sounding rehearsed.
The cheap errors — do not spend your six weeks here
These are noticed and recovered from instantly. They are worth fixing eventually, and they are a poor use of scarce study time.
- Articles (a / the). The most agonised-over grammar point in English, and among the least costly. A missing article rarely obscures meaning. If your first language has no articles, accept that this will take years and stop treating it as an emergency.
- Prepositions (on the weekend / at the weekend). Both are used by native speakers somewhere.
- The occasional wrong word form. Success / successful is worth a look, but it is not where your band is.
An order of attack
- Weeks 1–2: stop the bleeding. Tense sequences, subject–verb agreement, dropped -s / -ed, comma splices. Look each one up in Murphy as you hit it — that is what a reference is for.
- Weeks 3–4: add range deliberately. One structure per week, forced into every answer: conditionals, then relative clauses, then concession.
- Week 5 onwards: everything else, including articles.
- Throughout: find your own errors, rather than working through a book of everyone's. Your errors are a short, specific list, and you almost certainly do not know what is on it.
That last point is the one people skip. Aflo marks your grammar sentence by sentence and gives you an improved version of your own writing, so you can see exactly which of Murphy's units you actually need.
For the test, and for real English
For the test: rank by damage. Fix what breaks meaning, then acquire the structures that demonstrate range, and leave the articles until last.
For real English: Murphy remains the reference to own, and "look it up when you are unsure" is a habit worth keeping for life. The articles do matter eventually — not because an examiner is counting them, but because in twenty years of writing English you would rather get them right. That is simply a slower project than the one you are on this month.
One caveat Murphy states himself, and it saves people from a bad purchase: the book is written for intermediate learners and is "not suitable for elementary learners". If the basic tenses are not yet in place, this is not the book to start with, and no amount of discipline will make it one.
Frequently asked questions
Which grammar should I study first for IELTS?
The errors that break meaning: tense in a sequence of events, subject-verb agreement, dropped -s and -ed endings, and comma splices in writing. Those are where a band is actually lost. Working through a grammar book front to back means spending your first weeks on the present continuous while the expensive errors sit in units you never reach.
Do article mistakes (a / the) lower my IELTS score?
Far less than most candidates think. A missing article rarely obscures meaning, so a listener recovers instantly — while a dropped -ed ending deletes the past tense and costs you on grammar and pronunciation at once. Articles are worth fixing eventually; they are a poor use of scarce study time before a test, especially if your first language does not have them.
Is English Grammar in Use good for IELTS?
It is the best grammar reference there is, and Murphy tells you himself how to use it: 'The units are not in order of difficulty, so it is not intended that you work through the book from beginning to end.' There are 145 units and a Study guide at the back that tells you which ones you need — the book even repeats that instruction in the running header of page after page. Look up the errors you actually make, rather than starting at Unit 1.
What grammar structure is most worth learning for a higher band?
The conditional, especially the unreal one — 'If governments invested more, fewer people would drive.' It is genuinely complex, IELTS questions invite it constantly, and once two patterns are automatic you produce complex grammar in almost every answer without anything sounding rehearsed.