If you have prepared for IELTS using any popular course, you almost certainly have a template in your head. Maybe it starts with "It is often argued that..." Maybe it has a memorised conclusion that begins "In conclusion, while both sides have merit..."

Throw it away.

Examiners are trained to spot templated language. There is an internal note in the official IELTS examiner training material — paraphrased here — that says: "A candidate who uses memorised expressions cannot be awarded above Band 6 for Lexical Resource, regardless of the rest of the essay."

In other words: one template phrase, and your essay is capped. The rest of your effort is wasted.

Why templates exist

They feel safe. They are taught because they reduce panic on test day. A candidate with a template knows they will produce 250 words, no matter what the topic is. The trade-off is that those 250 words come at a Band 6 ceiling.

Templates also do something more insidious: they replace thinking with recitation. When you write "It is often argued...", you are not arguing anything. You are filling space. The examiner sees the space-filler and knows the rest of the essay was written without genuine engagement.

What to do instead

Don't memorise sentences. Memorise moves.

A move is a thing an essay does. "Take a position." "Anticipate a counter-argument." "Concede a point and reframe it." These are moves. They are language-independent — you can execute them in any words you choose.

A template gives you ten sentences. You'll deploy the same ten on every essay. A repertoire of moves gives you twenty options, and you choose which combination fits the question.

Templates write the same essay for every prompt. Moves let you write a different essay for every prompt — using the same skill.

A test you can run on your own writing

Take any essay you have written in the past month. Highlight every phrase that exists in any IELTS prep book — "In today's society", "It is undeniable that", "plays a vital role", "on the other hand", "in conclusion".

Now delete every highlighted phrase. Whatever is left is your actual writing.

If less than 70% of the essay survives, your essay was a template wearing your name. Examiners notice that within the first paragraph.

The harder, better path

Stop practising essays you'll forget. Start practising the moves. Take one prompt. Write three different responses — each with a different opening move (concession first, position first, reframe first). Compare them. Notice which one was easier to defend.

That kind of practice builds a writer, not a memoriser. And the writer always scores higher than the memoriser, even when they make more grammar errors.