Learning to use articles correctly allows you to make fewer mistakes so you can  improve your grammatical accuracy in IELTS writing and when speaking.

Here are the basic rules:

1. Do NOT use an article when describing things in general.

   “Ø Exams put a lot of pressure on Ø students”.

2. Use ‘the’ when you are talking about something specific.

   “The exams that students do in the final year of high school can shape their whole life”.

3. Use ‘the’ with an adjective to describe groups.

   “The rich are getting richer every year”.

4. Use ‘a’ with words that start with a consonant sound.

   “A large number of students study abroad every year”.

5. Use ‘an’ with words that start with a vowel sound.

   “Regular exams are an important feature of secondary school education”.