Oh, it’s about trying to “beat the test.” The IELTS is a brilliant exam, designed by teams of experts over many years to determine a candidate’s English level as accurately as possible. That’s why it’s trusted by employers and governments around the world — and relied upon for high-stakes hiring and immigration decisions. The thing is, if a large “IELTS preparation school” (or multiple such schools) in China is telling all their students to use a certain expression to “sound native,” there are going to be a number of problems:

1. Some test-takers may try too hard to use the expression where it isn’t really needed, and it may indeed come across as awkward or forced.

2. Even if used correctly, the IELTS examiners are going to notice that every single Chinese IELTS test-taker is going out of his way to use the same expression, and that’s going to get annoying. The test preparation courses teach these expressions in order for students to stand out from the crowd with their supposedly “spontaneous” use of English, but if they teach the same expressions to lots of students, it’s going to be ineffective (or worse). It would really be far better to encourage students to find their own favorite expressions, and learn a good variety for different contexts and rhetorical purposes.