IELTS Tips: 6 Tips for Building your Vocabulary
Our IELTS Tips blog features strategies from our experienced IELTS instructors that they want to share with you. Whether you are taking your IELTS test this month or next year, you can learn something useful about taking this high stakes English test.
Everyone should know that having a large vocabulary is key when it comes to achieving a high score on the IELTS exam.
One of the best things you can do to build a large vocabulary is write down new words that you encounter. Research shows that writing things by hand has a strong connection to our memory, so keeping a handwritten vocabulary journal is a great way to study vocabulary efficiently.
But keeping a vocabulary journal is more than just writing down new words and their definition. There are some things to consider before you start, so let’s take a look at 6 tips for keeping an effective IELTS vocabulary journal.
#1 Focus on the right topics
Before we start to build vocabulary, it’s wise to consider the topics we would like to become more fluent with. The IELTS test is a bit more formal than most daily conversation, so try to develop your vocabulary around the topics that they are most likely to ask you to speak and write about.
Common IELTS topics include
· Environment
· Technology
· Education
· Art and Music
· Health and Medicine
· Crime and Law
· Family
· Food and Culture
#2 Write sentences
Learning a new word is useless if you can’t use it in a sentence. That’s why it’s important to create a context around new vocabulary words. Always write down one or two example sentences when you record a new vocabulary book in your journal. Try copying one sentence from an online dictionary resource, and then creating another one on your own.
#3 – Paraphrase it
Having a large vocabulary means being able to say things in different ways. It’s well known that paraphrasing is essential on every part of the IELTS test. So, when you learn a new word, make sure you look up at least one synonym and practice using that too. This will make you more flexible when it comes to using these ideas in speaking and writing.
dismantle = take apart
The mechanic slowly dismantled the car’s engine
He took apart the engine slowly.
repair = fix
I need to repair my bicycle next weekend.
Last weekend, I fixed my bike.
#4 – Change the form
You may have noticed that the vocabulary words you have learned in don’t always look the same. Grammar causes a lot of changes in spelling and meaning that can be difficult to keep track of. It’s a good idea to make note of these different word forms in your vocabulary journal. Try some of these examples.
active to passive
raise a child – be raised by a parent
adjective+noun to verb+adverb
considerable growth – grew considerably
positive to negative
equality – inequality
#5 – Collocations
Collocations are words that appear together very frequently. Make note of these pairs so that you can build a stronger sentence with your new vocabulary and start using it to describe new things. Try an online collocation dictionary like this one to explore which words work best together. Try entering the word “consumption” into the collocation dictionary, for example, and you will see the most common collocations for different grammatical structures.
an adjective to place before it
heavy consumption, low consumption
a verb that commonly appears before it
reduce consumption, stimulate consumption
a verb to come after it
consumption fell, consumption went up
another noun that makes a recognizable pair with it
consumption levels, consumption habits
#6 – Review
Now that you are keeping a vocabulary journal, make sure you review it! This is the most important part for making new vocabulary words stick in your memory. Ideally, you can review the vocabulary 2-3 days after you wrote it down, and again after 1-2 weeks, and a third time after about a month. This will ensure your brain can transfer these words from your short-term memory to your long-term memory, making it easier to use your new vocabulary in speaking and writing when your test day comes.