IELTS Vocabulary collection for Higher Band Scores

When people hear the word “vocabulary,” they tend to think of single words. They forget that “vocabulary” actually has a broader meaning than that: it includes not only words but phrases and collocations. All of this is considered when the examiner is assigning your IELTS writing and speaking scores. It goes under the category known as “Lexical Resource.”

Why Learning Single Words Isn’t Enough

Considering that, it is a bad idea to simply learn single words when studying for IELTS. Many people get lists of 200 or 500 words and try to memorise them, but this won’t help much for speaking and writing because those people don’t know how to use the words they learned. They only know the basic meaning of each one.

What to Consider When Learning Vocabulary

Whenever you learn a word, you should take into consideration:

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What Are Collocations?

That last one is very important. It basically means “words that commonly go together.” Sometimes it’s a matter of rights vs wrong and sometimes it’s more about what sounds natural. However, it’s best to think of it as words that simply go together.

What does this mean for studying vocabulary?

Put simply, it means that when you learn new words, you should learn the words that commonly go with them. Let’s say you encounter the word “brew.” It has several meanings, which you should learn first:

Once you have learned these, you need to learn how to use them. It’s important to know the basics of verbs and nouns, of course, but you should also learn what words commonly go with this. In the U.K., people often drink tea with friends, family, and co-workers. When they do, they might say “have a brew” or “brew some coffee.” You might have “a strong brew” or be “desperate for a brew.” We use the 3^rd option to describe bad weather, so we might say “there’s a storm brewing.” However, this could also be used idiomatically to mean “a bad situation.”

As you can see, then, learning one word sometimes requires a lot more than simply knowing an approximate meaning. You need to know various meanings, some of which are metaphorical, and also know the words that naturally go alongside them.

Knowing this is essential when you prepare for IELTS. It affects almost every word you learn because every word naturally has other words it commonly goes with. Let’s take some basic examples.

If you were asked to talk about sport, you might mention football. But what words go together with “football”? Well, here are some common mistakes and the correct versions:

As you can see, then, even with very common words it’s possible to make easy mistakes. We need to know the words that naturally collocate with them in order to speak accurately and convey real meaning.

Let’s see some examples related to the topic of photography:

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If you just know the basic meaning of these words, the phrases on the left probably sound reasonable, but the ones on the right are correct because the words go together naturally. Again, this is collocation and it’s vitally important if you want a good score for Lexical Resource.

When you prepare for IELTS, it’s a good idea to study vocabulary by looking at different topics, and when you do, make sure to figure out some common collocations. A good way to do this is to search for new words on Google. Find articles written by native speakers and then make note of patterns in these sentences. By “patterns,” I mean groups of words that just naturally go together.

Collocations by Topic: Electric Cars

You can also simply list group of words that you encounter when looking at articles on a certain topic. Let’s say you want to research electric cars because this often appears in IELTS writing. Look at the following passage:

Electric cars have surged in popularity in recent years, driven by advances in battery technology and growing environmental awareness. Unlike traditional gasoline-powered vehicles, they run on electricity stored in rechargeable batteries, producing zero tailpipe emissions. This makes them a cleaner alternative, helping to reduce air pollution and combat climate change.

Here, we have natural collocations, such as:

Some of these phrases probably sound familiar. However, they are all very useful for IELTS and it is important that they aren’t just single words that you need to somehow put into a sentence. They are phrases that already collocate naturally with the words around them.

List of Collocations for IELTS

The Role of Prepositions

Another thing to consider is prepositions. These are words such as:

Most English learners know that they can be tricky to master because they don’t always follow clear rules. Instead, you basically just need to memorise their usage. It can be hard to figure out why we are “on the train” but “in a car.” You might also see phrases like “at the supermarket” or “in the bank” and feel confused. It’s often best just to view words as naturally collocated and then remember them as groups rather than figure out rules for them.

Conclusion

Having common collocations in your word is a great way to boost your IELTS score and this will help you a lot for both IELTS writing and IELTS speaking.