A1 Grammar for IELTS: Topics, Rules, Examples

The IELTS A1 Grammar is the basic or first level of proficiency (also referred to as the beginner’s level of proficiency) in the English language. A person who scores between IELTS bands 1 and 2 is generally considered to be at the CEFR A1 proficiency level. With this level of understanding of the English language, the candidate is described as having very basic English skills, meaning that they’re only able to understand basic English and use some basic phrases in familiar situations such as introducing themselves and asking simple questions about daily needs. 

Check out the topics below for the IELTS Grammar A1 level of proficiency:

• Present Simple Tense
• Basic Sentence Structure
• Personal Pronouns
• Articles for IELTS
• Prepositions

A Present Simple Tense, also known as the verb tense, describes the daily habits, routine, actions, general truths and universally accepted facts. There are different rules for the affirmative, negative and interrogative sentences of the Present Simple Tenses but the general rule for Simple Present Tense is:

Subject + Verb First Form + s/es* + Object

* s/es applies only to the third person singular (except the plural form)

Here are a few examples of the Present Simple Tense:

• I live in London. 
• She works in a hospital.
• We eat breakfast at 8 o'clock.

A sentence is a group of words that defines a complete question, idea, information or thought. A sentence has only one subject, a verb or verb phrase and an object. The general rule for making a sentence is:

Subject + Verb + Object

Here are a few examples of the basic sentence structure:

• I like to eat pizza.
• She is watching TV
• He visited his grandmother yesterday.

A personal pronoun is a word that is used to replace the noun to avoid repetition in the paragraph/sentence. Just as nouns, a personal pronoun can address a person, place, animal or thing. Personal Pronouns generally include he, she, it, they, I, we, you. Here are the general rules for using Personal Pronouns:

1. The personal pronoun must match with the person, number and gender of the antecedent (the noun getting replaced). For example: he (masculine), she (feminine), his/her (singular), their (plural), etc. 
2. The personal pronoun “I” should always be capitalised. 

Check out the examples of the personal pronouns below. 

• He is my brother.
• I am a student.
• She is my teacher.

Articles are used before nouns in a sentence to define whether the noun is specific or general. Articles are of two types - definite and indefinite which define the specific and general group of nouns respectively. Here is the general rule for using articles in a sentence for the IELTS A1 level. 

1. Definite Article (the): to be used with general or non-specific singular nouns. 
2. Indefinite Article (a, an): to be used before singular countable nouns when referring to a member of the group and also when they’re being used to introduce a noun for the first time; with an to be used before nouns starting with vowels.

Here are a few examples of the articles for IELTS:

• I have a dog.
• She is an artist.
• The sun is shining.

A preposition is a word that shows the relationship between a noun, pronoun and other words in a sentence. Some of the prepositions are- on, in, at, of, to, for, etc. Here are the general rules for using prepositions in a sentence for preparation for the IELTS A1 level.  

1. A preposition must be either followed by a noun or pronoun.
2. Prepositions can either be a word or a group of words. 
3. Prepositions, whenever used, must be in their objective form. For example, “me”, “her”, and “them” are objective prepositions and “I”, “she” and “they” are subjective prepositions. 

This was all about the IELTS CEFR A1 level. So, if you want to achieve a higher IELTS band score, check the details about A2 level proficiency of IELTS.