Coherence and cohesion: what is actually being marked
Two paragraphs, same topic, same length. One of them is doing what this criterion rewards and one is doing what candidates are usually taught.
Firstly, pollution is a serious problem. Moreover, it affects health. Furthermore, governments should act. In conclusion, pollution is bad.
Four connectors, four sentences, no argument. Each one announces an addition, so nothing develops. The paragraph lists.
Pollution is usually framed as an environmental problem, but its clearest cost is medical: respiratory illness rates in the worst-affected cities run several times the national average. That cost lands on public health budgets, which is why the argument for regulation is financial as much as ethical.
Two connectors, both doing work. But marks a real contrast; which is why marks a real consequence. The paragraph reasons.
The test for any connector: take it out. If the relationship between the sentences is still obvious, it was decoration. If the sentences suddenly seem unrelated, it was carrying meaning.
Why the first paragraph is the common one
Because "use linking words" is the most repeated advice in IELTS preparation, and it is easy to follow. Counting your connectors feels like progress in a way that reordering your argument does not.
But overuse and mechanical use are weaknesses in their own right at the top bands. The criterion has two halves and connectors only touch one of them.
Coherence is whether the ideas follow each other — could a reader summarise your argument after one pass? Cohesion is the surface machinery that signals the connections. They fail independently, and an essay stuffed with connectors can be incoherent precisely because the connectors announce relationships the ideas do not have.
Paragraphing, stated carefully
Both halves of this matter, and most advice gives only one.
A response with no paragraph breaks at all is a real weakness. One unbroken block gives the reader nothing to hold, and it usually reflects an essay that was not planned. That is the paragraphing problem that costs marks.
A short paragraph is not a fault. There is no required number of paragraphs and no required length; a two-sentence paragraph making one point cleanly is fine, and so is a four-paragraph Task 2 essay, and so is a five-paragraph one.
The working rule is one central idea per paragraph, visible in the first sentence or two. If you cannot say what a paragraph is about in a few words, it is doing two jobs and should be split — not because of its length, but because a reader cannot follow two arguments at once.
The half nobody teaches
Referencing and substitution: pointing back at things instead of naming them again. This is what separates cohesion that reads naturally from cohesion you can hear.
- Pronouns. it, they, this, these, such — as long as the reference is unambiguous. "This is a problem" after a paragraph containing three ideas leaves the reader guessing which one.
- Substitution. Naming the same thing a second way: the policy, this approach, the measure.
- Ellipsis. Leaving out what is already understood, so the sentence stops restating its own context.
Candidates who repeat the same noun phrase in every sentence are penalised twice for it: here, for absent referencing, and under Lexical Resource, for repetition.
A check that takes two minutes
- Read only the first sentence of each paragraph. Do they alone outline your argument?
- Count your connectors. More than roughly one per two sentences is decoration.
- Find every this and it, and ask what it refers to. If you hesitate, so will the examiner.
- Check that no paragraph makes two separate points.
This is usually the cheapest of the four criteria to lift, because it responds to planning rather than to years of language acquisition — which makes it a sensible target if you are working from 7 toward 8. It is one of four equally weighted criteria; how they combine is its own page.
Is your linking helping or hurting? IELTS Writing Checker scores coherence and cohesion separately and points at the places it breaks down. Try it — writing is free, or see pricing.