Grammar for ielts writing a handbook by David S. Wills Contents

Grammar for IELTS Writing

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You can see that in these examples, the participles (“unwilling”= present par-
ticiple; “angered”= past participle) refer directly to the subjects. Many old people 
are unwilling to move to the cities and many voters were angered by the recent 
changes. 
IELTS Examples
Let’s look now at some applicable IELTS writing task 2 examples. 
Question: 
Many criminals commit crimes shortly after being released from prison. 
What are the causes of this problem?
What are some solutions? 
To this question, we have the opportunity to use participle clauses in many 
ways. Here are some examples: 
„
Unable to find a job, the former prisoners return to a life of crime. 
„
Finding life on the outside difficult, these people turn to an easy op-
portunity for money. 
„
Presented with few options, prisoners sometimes look to petty crime to 
survive. 
„
Shunned by society, ex-prisoners struggle to make a living. 
„
Knowing that they have to work harder than most people to get a 
job, some of these men turn back to a life of crime in order to get an 
income. 
Note that in the final example I said “knowing.” The verb “know” is considered 
non-continuous and so we seldom use it with an “-ing” ending. However, with