VOCABULARY BUILDING: HOW TO BUILD YOUR WORD POWER

BUILD YOUR WORD POWER:

Building your word power certainly pays of in the long run. You can certainly use a good variety of words to use in the IELTS writing module. Remember, the key is to use the words accurately and appropriately (just using difficult words but inaccurately can cause the candidate to lose marks, so be careful.) 

Using a good variety of words is impressive and also useful, however words cannot be memorized merely by cramming the dictionary everyday or by learning them from other sources without reference to their usage because the words memorized will be forgotten as there is no cognitive support to help remember them. Confused? Don't be. WORDS CAN BE REMEMBERED ONLY IN CONTEXT. If you don't know their usage in real life you won't remember them!!

For example:

"GREGARIOUS" might be a difficult words to memorize and later recall and use in everyday life or even in EXAMS. However, if you know that "gregarious" is an adjective, in addition to knowing its actual meaning [which is: (for people) liking to be with others or (for animals) living in groups], you will be able to use it more properly in a sentence. Similarly if you knew its actual usage in a "sentence" you will be able to remember it even better. Here's a sentence usage:

• Jennifer is a gregarious person who loves to go out with friends and family.

• Lions are gregarious animals. They always live in groups.

So now you know:

• the word's meaning,
• what part of speech it is (it is an adjective, and adjectives describe nouns)
• and how it can be used in different types of sentences

RESOURCES:

So to learn words in context use specific vocabulary books like:

• English Vocabulary in Use by MC Carthy and Felicity O Del or
• Oxford Word Power Dictionary which help in learning words in context.
• Cambridge Online Dictionary is also a good resource