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 By Sand KitKa

20 Ways to Build IELTS Vocabulary

IELTS vocabulary building is the most basic job before your IELTS test if you are going to hunt high scores. Students usually ask the same question: What tips can help us save time and effort and improve the efficiency of vocabulary building. It isn't a simple job to master IELTS vocabulary in a short time. Here we share 20 tips with you, read them carefully, and follow them as possible. Your IELTS words will be improved quickly.

Don't forget we are in the information technology era; some apps or software will help you follow these tips with less effort and more productivity.


1. Keep going. Even if only 10 new words a day, it is a great asset if you never stop. This is the most important point in all tips.

2. Review on the second and third day for each new word before you forget it. Looking for the right software to help you manage your reviewing.

3. Do not follow alphabet orders like A-Z, start from S and T. These words are more frequent in tests. This works for those who are in a very narrow time frame.

4. Repetition is more important than time-consuming. Rather than spend ten minutes a word, you should review ten times, each one minute. It means you shouldn't know everything of a word, just get its common definitions.

5. Write and read, don’t just see it when reviewing. Your mouth and ear are part of you; they also can help you familiarize new words.

6. Never give up. Everyone once forgets words, more or less. Just study it again, review in a narrow frequency. You may use vocabulary cards to revisit known words and restart forgotten words.

7. Divide vocabulary into common words and positive words; reading vocabulary belongs to the former category. You know them is enough; the latter category probably will be used in writing and speaking. You have to write and say them. You may need a tutor or reference book to categorize the vocabulary.

8. Use of learning tools, like IELTS 1200 Words in 30 Days on this site. The proper tool saves you lots of time. We believe the right tools are important as the same as the right tutor in IELTS vocabulary building.

9. Learn new words in TV, news, ads, and any daily reading, that IELTS exam materials are likely from.

10. Put new words in examples or contexts to memorize. Don't try to memorize a dictionary; it's a hard and boring job. Even if you did it, you still need extra effort to learn how to use these words.

11. For the listening test, you should summarize the scenes, such as rent category, banking, and so on, to prepare vocabulary. The listening words are usually simpler than in reading materials, but you need to get them quickly by ear. This is why they should be grouped by scenes and prepared in special training.

12. To remember listening vocabulary, you must listen and say, listen and write, cannot listen and watch, when the eyes and ears work simultaneously, the eyes have priority, and no practice for ears.

13. In the writing test, you have to pay attention to the diversity of expression. Don't use a word repeatedly; instead, replace it with its synonyms. Keep an eye on synonyms when studying the new words.

14. In the writing test, you shouldn't make the pursuit of difficult words; for a 7 mark essay, difficult words appear 7-10 is sufficient. You have to know a word is common or difficult.

15. The accuracy of writing vocabulary is critical. If you are unsure, it is better not to use that word. Or say, only choose words that you have full confidence in writing.

16. Accumulation of necessary conjunctions, showing logic and structured in speaking and writing. These words are not many and not hard; however, they play an essential part in writing. Never ignore them.

17. For speaking tests, you should prepare vocabulary by topic category. For various topics, the related words are separate.

18. At least you have to prepare speaking words for four categories: people, events, places, and objects. For each category, you may divide it into some sub-groups.

19. The core of speaking and writing vocabulary is how to use them, not how many you know. So practice, speaking, and writing is a fundamental way in speaking and writing vocabulary building.

20. You cannot prepare speaking test vocabulary in mind; you must say them in loud and fluent English. Use your mouth, not only your eye, to prepare speaking vocabulary.