Grammar Questions for IELTS Task 1

by Pinki Gupta
(Sydney)

Articles with Nouns

I read that indefinite article a/an is used for countable nouns only. Comparing the following two sentences, which of these is correct.

1. There was a sharp rise in prices.
2. There was sharp rise in prices.

I am confused as both seem correct to me.

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Sep 25, 2016
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Articles
by: IELTS buddy

I think you are getting confused as to which noun the article is referring to.

The noun the 'a' goes with is 'rise', not prices. So the correct one is:

1. There was a sharp rise in prices.

In other words, "A rise".

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How to use "as much as / as many as" in graphs

by zohreh
(shefffield)

Hi Thank you for your helpful information. May I ask you to describe about correct usage of (as much/many as)? For instance is it right to say: This industry consumes ground water 9 times higher as much as public supply water?

The best wishes

Comments for How to use "as much as / as many as" in graphs

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Jun 15, 2013
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as much as / as many as
by: IELTS buddy

This industry consumes ground water 9 times higher as much as public supply water?

No, your sentence is not correct. There are quite a few errors with it, not just with "as much as".

The first point is this - you need to get your comparative structures correct. You should put the number or comparative phrase after the verb in this sentence. And "higher" is wrong also.

Once you change, both of these, the sentence will look like this::

"This industry consumes 9 times more ground water than.....("public water" does not make sense here so you must mean something else)".

"as much as" is used with uncountable nouns.

"as many as" is used with countable nouns (so you correctly used this one).

However, it can't be used with "9 times more". The phrase comes after the verb, so it needs to be used instead of this. It is used to say two things are the same. For example:

"This industry consumes as much ground water as the public supply".

Again, although the grammar is now correct, this does not seem to make sense to me so I think you may be misunderstanding whichever graph you are looking at.

Another way to use this phrase is for example:

"Spanish people spend $20 per week on fast food, which is as much as Italy".

Take a look at this lesson:

IELTS Task 1 Comparative Structures

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Flow chart-process of glass recycling

by Ying
(Auckland, New Zealand )

I am so confused with a practice test of a flow chart. It is talking about the process of glass recycling. In the task, should I use GLASS in general terms without putting 'es' afterwards?

However, once I started the writing... I feel much easier if I put glass into countable and using 'a' or 'es'. Has anybody come across this kind of question and already got an answer? Thanks

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Jan 17, 2017
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Glass recycling
by: IELTS buddy

If you are talking about glass generally then you would use just 'glass'.

The only time you use 'glasses' is if you are talking about the type of glasses you put a drink in. For example, 'He bought several new glasses at the shop'.

Or of course it is always 'glasses' if you talk about the ones you use to help you see.

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