IELTS Preparation Series 3, Episode 5: Vocabulary Range

(Bấm vào đây để chọn bài học kế tiếp)

Xem lời thoại bên dưới:

0:02

Hello, and welcome to Study English, IELTS Preparation. I'm Margot Politis.

0:17

Today we'll look at some strategies for meeting the requirements of vocabulary, one of the

0:23

criteria used to assess IELTS candidates.

0:26

When writing, you can expand what you want to say by adding words that give more detail,

0:33

or are more specific and descriptive.

0:35

This is a good way of showing the extent of your vocabulary.

0:41

Take this sentence for example:

0:44

Collection services can reduce rubbish.

0:48

What can you say to make this sentence more specific and descriptive?

0:52

First, look at 'collection services'. Ask yourself who, what, why and where?

1:03

What sort of collection services reduce rubbish?

1:06

They could be 'weekly collection services' or 'better collection services'. You could

1:15

also say 'more frequent collection services':

1:20

More frequent collection services can reduce rubbish.

1:26

You can do more than just use words in front of 'collection services'. You can also add

1:31

a phrase after it.

1:32

Ask yourself the same sort of questions: 'what is collected, who is collecting it'?

1:40

So you can add:

1:42

More frequent collection services for recyclables can reduce rubbish.

1:49

You don't have to stop at just one phrase. You might also want to say who does the collecting.

1:56

So:

1:57

More frequent collection services for recyclables by councils can reduce rubbish.

2:08

You can also add words to the verb in the sentence. We know more collection can reduce

2:14

rubbish - but by how much?

2:17

It can substantially reduce rubbish.

2:20

So:

2:22

More frequent collection services for recyclables by councils can substantially reduce rubbish.

2:32

Substantially is an adverb. It's one of the forms of the word substantial.

2:38

Adverbs often end with '-ly'

2:41

Other words that mean a large amount are vast, considerable and great.

2:50

Their adverbs are vastly, considerably and greatly.

2:58

Any of these words could be used instead of 'substantially'.

3:01

A good vocabulary is not simply the number of words you know. It's being able to use

3:10

all the forms of a word correctly.

3:13

For instance 'reduce' means to become smaller or to lessen. Listen to how it's used in this

3:20

clip from a story about sealing roads:

3:25

In Asia the cost of re-doing roads is very high. We can address that issue and give them

3:32

a tightly bound surface, which will reduce the costs for the regional councils.

3:38

Will reduce the costs. Reduce - that's the base form of the verb. Reduce is a regular

3:46

verb with the forms reducing and reduced. He uses one of these here:

3:54

Here you have a car that is travelling along an untreated section of road and then hitting

4:00

a treated section of the road. You can see that the dust is reduced by a significant

4:05

amount.

4:09

Is reduced by a significant amount. That's a verb form. But what form of reduce would

4:15

you use as an adjective?

4:19

Our product very effectively binds the soils and particles that make up the materials for

4:24

the roads. This means you can have a reduced cost in terms of the number of times that

4:29

road authorities have to maintain and repair that road over a long period of time.

4:34

A reduced cost. The -ed form can also be used as an adjective like this.

4:44

reduced price reduced pressure

4:49

Reduce has a noun form. Listen: One of the problems of driving on an unsealed

4:55

road is the amount of dust that comes off the surface. With our treatment, we find there's

5:02

a dramatic reduction in that dust problem.

5:07

The noun is reduction. You'll find that -ion endings for nouns, -ly for adverbs and -ed

5:17

for adjectives are very common.

5:19

When you learn new words it is important that you know all their forms and practise using

5:26

them. It's a good strategy for building your vocabulary.

5:30

So learn word forms.

5:37

Another good strategy is to know which prepositions are normally used with particular words.

5:44

Let's look at the word 'reason', a word you're likely to use in an IELTS essay.

5:50

What preposition is reason used with?

5:52

Listen to this woman talking about a famous road in Australia:

5:59

The Great Ocean road is probably the most spectacular coastal drive in the world. I

6:06

think the reason for that is that it's got such a variety of scenery from cool temperate

6:11

rainforests to the cliffs and rock stacks around the Twelve Apostles.

6:19

She says, "the reason for that is…". Reason can be followed by the preposition

6:26

'for'. You can say, reason for leaving … or reason for arguing …

6:34

Look at 'know' for instance. With the verb form 'know' we use the preposition 'about',

6:42

know about, like this woman when explaining why she makes a scrapbook of her life:

6:49

I'm creating something that gives me a chance to put something about who I am onto that

6:53

page. I often think when I'm working on a project, "What would my kids like to know

6:59

about me in 20 or 40 years time?

7:03

Know about me. But with the noun form 'knowledge', we use 'of', 'knowledge of'. Listen to this

7:13

man use 'knowledge of' to talk about an art collection that students are studying:

7:21

We have students from overseas in the course. They get to get this first-hand knowledge

7:26

of this terrific collection, but also they can take that back with them to the countries

7:32

they come from.

7:35

So let's recap.

7:40

You can add detail about who, what and where to sentences like this.

7:47

The dragon is paraded.

7:50

The colourful dragon is paraded. The colourful dragon is noisily paraded.

7:59

The colourful dragon with people inside it is noisily paraded.

8:05

The colourful dragon with people inside it is noisily paraded down the street.

8:12

To do this you need to know that the adjective of the word colour is colourful and the adverb

8:19

of noise is noisily.

8:23

And you need to correctly use phrases such as 'with people inside it' and 'down the street'.

8:31

This is the kind of vocabulary the examiners are looking for.

8:38

You also need to be aware of the prepositions that go with certain words.

8:43

You say that you know about something:

8:47

I'm creating something that gives me a chance to put something about who I am onto that

8:50

page. I often think when I'm working on a project, "What would my kids like to know

8:56

about me in 20 or 40 years time?

8:59

But have knowledge of something:

9:03

We have students from overseas in the course. They get to get this first-hand knowledge

9:07

of this terrific collection, but also they can take that back with them to the countries

9:13

they come from.

9:16

And you say that you have a reason for doing something:

9:19

The Great Ocean road is probably the most spectacular coastal drive in the world. I

9:26

think the reason for that is that it's got such a variety of scenery from cool temperate

9:32

rainforests to the cliffs and rock stacks around the Twelve Apostles.

9:41

That's all for now.

9:42

To find more information about vocabulary visit our Study English website at: australianetwork.com/studyenglish.

9:47

Good luck with your studies.

#II23Ieltsprepseries3