How to Improve Coherence and Cohesion in IELTS Writing

Coherence and Cohesion makes up 25% of your IELTS Writing Task 2 score — a full quarter — yet most candidates in Pakistan treat it as nothing more than “sprinkling in linking words.” That misunderstanding is exactly why so many hard-working students stall at Band 6.0 in Writing. Overusing connectors like moreover and furthermore can actually pull your score down, not up. This guide explains what examiners really check, the mistakes we see most often from Pakistani candidates, and a paragraph structure that reliably earns Band 7.

On this page

• What examiners actually check
• Coherence & Cohesion band descriptors compared
• The connector-overuse trap
• Common mistakes Pakistani candidates make
• A paragraph structure that works
• FAQ

What examiners actually check

Coherence and Cohesion are two connected but separate things. Coherence is whether your ideas are organised logically — one clear central idea per paragraph, arranged in a sensible order that a reader can follow without effort. Cohesion is whether your sentences connect smoothly, using a natural mix of linking words, pronoun reference, and substitution — not just connectors bolted onto the front of every sentence.

A trained examiner reads your essay the way any fluent reader would: they notice when they have to re-read a sentence to work out what “it” refers to, or when a paragraph wanders between two ideas. Those small moments of friction are what separate Band 6 from Band 7. At English Learning Point, every practice essay is scored by a real, examiner-trained marker — never AI — so the feedback you get is about these exact reading moments, not a keyword count a machine produced.

Coherence & Cohesion band descriptors compared

Here is what the difference actually looks like across the bands most Pakistani candidates move between:

Notice the pattern: the jump to Band 7 is not about more linking words. It is about variety and control — and about referencing, which most stuck-at-6 essays barely use.

The connector-overuse trap

Starting every sentence with Moreover, In addition, or Furthermore is one of the most recognisable Band 6 patterns examiners see. It signals that a candidate learned a list of connectors and is inserting them to look advanced. Natural cohesion works differently: it leans on referencing (“this issue,” “such an approach,” “these students”) and substitution, and it happily lets some sentences connect through meaning alone, with no connector at all.

A quick test: read your paragraph and count how many sentences begin with a formal connector. If it is more than one or two in a five-sentence paragraph, you are almost certainly overusing them.

Common mistakes Pakistani candidates make

Because Urdu and English organise ideas differently, a few specific patterns show up again and again in essays from students across Lahore, Karachi, and Islamabad:

• Over-formal connectors from school English. Words like henceforth, thus, and whereby are taught heavily in Pakistani exam writing, but stacking them makes prose feel stiff and dated rather than fluent.
• Weak pronoun reference. Urdu often drops or repeats the subject, so writers either repeat the full noun every time (“the government… the government… the government”) or use “it” so loosely the examiner cannot tell what it points to.
• One paragraph, two ideas. A single body paragraph that argues both cause and solution at once. In IELTS, that costs coherence marks — one controlling idea per paragraph is the rule.
• Article slips inside linking phrases. “On other hand” instead of “on the other hand” is a small error that a marker still notices and that quietly caps your cohesion score.

A paragraph structure that works

Use this simple, repeatable shape for every body paragraph. It builds coherence automatically:

When each paragraph carries exactly one idea in this order, coherence takes care of itself, and you only need a light touch of cohesive devices to reach Band 7. Our named instructor, Mudasser Iqbal, teaches this structure in every Writing session precisely because it removes the guesswork — you stop asking “which connector do I add?” and start asking “is this paragraph about one thing?”

FAQ

Is Coherence and Cohesion really 25% of my Writing score?
Yes. It is one of four equally weighted criteria in Task 2, alongside Task Response, Lexical Resource, and Grammatical Range and Accuracy.

Will using more linking words raise my band?
No — overusing them is a Band 6 signal. Range, accuracy, and referencing raise the band, not quantity.

How many linking words should a paragraph have?
Usually one or two well-chosen ones. Let referencing and meaning do the rest of the connecting.

Can I reach Band 7 in Coherence with simple English?
Yes. Clear organisation and accurate referencing matter far more than fancy vocabulary.

How do I know if my referencing is actually clear?
Have a qualified marker read it. If they ever pause to work out what “this” or “it” refers to, the reference is not doing its job.