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II.2. What is meant by lexical content in writing

Examiners look at the range of vocabulary you use and how accurately you use it to express your opinion. Here are some of the important aspects of building your vocabulary:

Understand collocation

Collocation refers to how the words are commonly used together. A cup of tea, take a look and pay attention are some of the examples. Though there is no general rule to learning collocation, experience and awareness help.

Use uncommon expressions

Idiomatic phrases are an example of less common expressions. However, you must be careful to use them in relevance to the topic. ‘Piece of cake’, ‘break a leg’, and ‘up in the air’ are some examples of uncommon idiomatic expressions.

Use synonyms

Try to use a variety of words that have the same meaning. For example, instead of ‘world’, substitute it with other similar words like ‘global’, ‘universal’, ‘international’, etc.

Use effective paraphrasing

Do not copy the words from the task. Instead, use alternatives, but effectively. For instance, if the question mentions the word ‘child’, you can use the word ‘kids’ instead.

7 Tips To Score High in Lexical Resource

Following are a few more quick points you must always keep in mind to score high:

Tip 1: Make a personal vocabulary list

Did you learn a new word or expression today? Will you remember it after 3-4 days? If not, write it down. Make a personal vocabulary list of all the new words and expressions you learn in a notebook.

Tip 2: If you are not sure, avoid it

Using the same word, again and again, is not a good idea. However, using the wrong word in an attempt to add variety to the text is not a wise choice. If you’re not certain of the meaning of a word or how to use it, avoid using it incorrectly.

Tip 3: Use words that are associated with the topic

Do not just stick to using synonyms. You can also use expressions instead. Rather than using “heating” as an alternative to “warming”, prefer using “the temperature is rising.”

Tip 4: Use synonyms

Before you use a synonym it is important to analyze whether it is relevant to the context or not. ‘Youth’ and ‘teenager’ might appear to be synonyms that you can use interchangeably but this is not always the case. While teenagers are those in the age group of 13-19 years, youths may mean people who are 13 to 29 years.

Tip 5: Start preparing as early as possible

Begin your preparation ahead of time. Do not wait until the last minute to open books and explore resources. Start preparing the moment you decide to take the test.

Tip 6: Learn words from other resources

Books and the internet are not the only places where you can find good words. You can also pick up good words from other places like newspaper articles, magazines, movies, and much more.

Tip 7: Get professional help

Never underestimate the power of a teacher in making your IELTS journey easy. You can either book a one-on-one session with a tutor or join an English language program online or in person.

Lexical Resource is an important rating in both the IELTS Speaking and Writing tests as it makes up 25% of your total score. Let’s have a look at some important aspects of Lexical Resource and how you can help boost your score in this area.

Flexibility

It is important to vary your vocabulary when your writing or speaking is being assessed, and one way to do that is to use different parts of speech of a word. For example, if you hear a verb in your Speaking test question, you can reply with a noun or an adjective. Here is a sample question:

“Do you prefer fast food or traditional food?”

Instead of answering with “I prefer fast food because…”, you can try:

Actually, I have a preference for fast food for the reason that …”

Well, I’d say I have more of a preference for traditional cuisine because …”

Personally speaking, I find traditional food more preferable given that …”

In these examples, you can see the candidate use the noun form (preference) and the adjective form (preferable) instead of just copying the word ‘prefer’ which is used by the examiner.

Collocations

Good use of collocations is important in your IELTS Writing and Speaking tests. Collocations are how particular words and phrases are grouped together. Using the previous example of ‘preference’, we need to think about which other words belong with it when we use it. In this case, the verb ‘have’ belongs with it (along with the article ‘a’), plus the preposition ‘for’.

Therefore the full collocation of the noun form is:

have a preference for

As for the full collocation of the adjective form, you can use:

find (something) more preferable

Less common words

One way to show the examiner you have a wide range of vocabulary is to use vocabulary that is less common. However, please remember that it is not a good idea to use vocabulary like this repetitively.

Let’s look at the sample question from earlier and compare these two responses:

1. I prefer traditional food because it is much tastier than …

2. I am quite partial to traditional food because it is much tastier than …

What you ‘prefer’ and what you are ‘partial to’ have the same meaning, but in the second example, this is more useful in your response because this collocation is not used very often. Please note that whenever using less common words, you should always ensure you are using them in the right context.

One of the challenges of Task 1 in the IELTS General Writing test is when you have an informal letter. Quite often, less common vocabulary tends to be formal, so the difficulty here is to think of less common language that is informal instead. The second challenge here is to make sure the informal language you do choose is appropriate as well.

Here are two different sentences which say the same thing, but the second one has less common informal language.

So, if you are still really interested in visiting my hometown anytime soon, give me a call.

So, if you are still itching to visit my neck of the woods anytime soon, give me a buzz.