EXCITATION OF ALLOWED TRANSITIONS IN ION--ION COLLISIONS M. McKeown and R. H. G. Reid, Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, Queen's University, Belfast BT7 1NN, UK It is demonstrated that a commonly-used low-energy first-order approximation is not valid for the calculation of cross sections for excitation of allowed transitions in ion--ion collisions. Results are given for proton-impact excitation of the 2s-2p transition in C IV.