Vocabulary for IELTS: Word Lists, Exercises & Pronunciation

 Vocabulary is 25% of the student’s mark for IELTS writing and speaking and also plays a key role in
listening and reading.
 The learner must know how to paraphrase successfully.
 The most common vocabulary mistake in IELTS is with uncountable nouns.
IELTS Topics:
1) Advertising
2) Art: Paintings
3) Body Language
4) Camping
5) Crime & Punishment
6) Clothes: Casual & Formal
7) Education: School & University
8) Environmental Problems
9) Films
10) Food: Vegetables
11) Musical Instruments
12) Newspapers
13) People: Parts of the Face
14) Plants: Speaking Part 1 Topic
15) Technology

Vocabulary for IELTS: Word Lists, Exercises & Pronunciation

 Vocabulary is 25% of the student’s mark for IELTS writing and speaking and also plays a key role in
listening and reading.
 The learner must know how to paraphrase successfully.
 The most common vocabulary mistake in IELTS is with uncountable nouns.
IELTS Topics:
1) Advertising
2) Art: Paintings
3) Body Language
4) Camping
5) Crime & Punishment
6) Clothes: Casual & Formal
7) Education: School & University
8) Environmental Problems
9) Films
10) Food: Vegetables
11) Musical Instruments
12) Newspapers
13) People: Parts of the Face
14) Plants: Speaking Part 1 Topic
15) Technology
 Techniques for paraphrasing
Here are some techniques to use when paraphrasing.
Remember that these techniques should only be used once you have ensured you fully understood
the text; do not try to paraphrase a text you have not understood.
1. Using synonyms (words that mean the same)

Here; “may” is replaced with “is likely to” and “put upward pressure on“ is replaced with “push
up”.
Be careful when using synonyms. Many words have several meanings, depending on context, and
you have to think about the synonym which expresses the right meaning for the particular context.
2. Changing the form of words

In the first paraphrase a verb has been replaced with a noun from the same word family. In the
second an adjective has been replaced by a noun.
3. Changing the grammatical structure

Here one grammatical structure for making a comparison (“slower than”) has been replaced with
another (“not as rapid as”).
4. Using several techniques

In this final example, you will notice that:

 the order in which information is presented is different in the paraphrase
 different word forms in the same word family have been used (effective regulation > regulated effectively)
 synonyms have been used (in the absence of competition > without competition).
Note that successful paraphrasing requires the use of multiple techniques each time. It is not sufficient to
simply replace the keywords with synonyms and in fact this is a common mistake among students learning
to paraphrase. Changing the structure of the sentence is also important to fit the sentence into your
paragraph effectively.
Body Language Vocabulary
Line Graph Vocabulary