How to develop your vocabulary in IELTS writing with collocations.
I mark many essays and I find that the same words keep coming up in the writing, such as ‘a lot of’ / ‘humans’ / ‘nowadays’ / ‘like’
In fact, these are not wrong and using these in your sentences would not be considered grammatically incorrect, but the IELTS examiner is checking to see if you can use a wide range of vocabulary. If possible, try to avoid overusing these words to help with a better vocabulary score.
Which of these sentences below look more academic?
- A lot of people nowadays are shopping online, like using Amazon prime to buy clothes and electronic goods.
- A growing number of people in recent years tend to do their shopping online, such as using Amazon prime to buy clothes and electronic goods.
Sentence 2 is better as it uses a collocation ‘a growing number of’ and ‘in recent years’ it uses hedging language ‘tend to’ and ‘such as’ for an example.
Click this link for how to use ‘tend to’
The word ‘like‘ comes across as informal in IELTS writing when stating an example. Instead, use ‘such as‘ or ‘namely‘ to give a brief example.
