Grammar's Impact on Your Score
CELPIP writing is scored on grammatical range and accuracy. You don't need perfect grammar — but frequent basic errors cap your score at CLB 6–7 regardless of how good your ideas are.
The frustrating part: most candidates make the same 10 errors repeatedly. Fix these 10, and you eliminate 80–90% of your grammar deductions.
Errors 1–5: The Foundation Mistakes
1. Subject-verb agreement: ✗ "The list of options are available." ✓ "The list of options is available." The subject is "list" (singular), not "options." Find the real subject.
2. Article misuse (a/an/the/—): ✗ "I went to the school yesterday." (if you mean generally) ✓ "I went to school yesterday." ✗ "She is a best candidate." ✓ "She is the best candidate." Use "the" for specific/known things. Use "a/an" for general/first mentions. Skip articles for institutions used in their general sense ("school," "work," "church").
3. Tense shifting: ✗ "Yesterday I go to the store and bought milk." ✓ "Yesterday I went to the store and bought milk." Pick one tense per paragraph and stick to it unless the timeline genuinely shifts.
4. Run-on sentences: ✗ "The park is beautiful it has many trees and flowers." ✓ "The park is beautiful. It has many trees and flowers." OR "The park is beautiful; it has many trees and flowers."
5. Comma splices: ✗ "I enjoy hiking, it relaxes me." ✓ "I enjoy hiking because it relaxes me." OR "I enjoy hiking. It relaxes me."
Errors 6–10: The Subtle Score Killers
6. Wrong prepositions: ✗ "interested for" ✓ "interested in" ✗ "depend of" ✓ "depend on" ✗ "different of" ✓ "different from"
7. Pronoun reference errors: ✗ "When the manager talked to the employee, he was upset." (Who was upset?) ✓ "When the manager talked to the employee, the manager was upset."
8. Missing plural -s: ✗ "There are many advantage to this plan." ✓ "There are many advantages to this plan."
9. Double negatives: ✗ "I don't have no time." ✓ "I don't have any time." OR "I have no time."
10. Fragmented sentences: ✗ "Because it was raining." (incomplete — what happened?) ✓ "We stayed inside because it was raining."
The Proofreading Check
In the last 2 minutes of each writing task, scan specifically for these 10 errors:
1. Read each sentence and check: does the verb match the subject? 2. Check every "a," "an," "the" — is it the right one? 3. Verify tense consistency across each paragraph 4. Look for sentences without periods 5. Check every preposition
You won't catch everything, but even fixing 2–3 errors during proofreading can bump you up a CLB level. Those 2 minutes are the highest-value time in the entire writing test.