Collocations are groups of words that are often found together. Native speakers have a large repertoire of these word groups, and can use them without thinking. Language learners need to build their own repertoire of collocations through reading and listening, and by noticing word groups that commonly occur.
Here are some collocations from the essay I wrote last week:
- a rich variety
- a vital part, a necessary part
- a range of reasons
- musical preferences
- life stories
- express emotions, arouse emotions
- a commercial product
- cultural identity
- human existence
- give importance
These are just some of the most obvious collocations in the essay. We could also add grammatical collocations like 'a means of' and 'valued over'. To read more about collocations, click here and here.
Hi simon,
Is it alright to use pronouns such as them, they, her, him, themselves in academic writing task 2?
I took my exam last july and got an overall band score of 7.5. I got the required band from the 3 subtests but unfortunately, my writing did not meet the grade of 7. I just got 6.5. More advice please. Thank you very much
Posted by: Michelle | October 18, 2012 at 00:35
Hello Simon,
Thank you for the great article. I am very much of the opinion that collocations are overly essential to learn because relevant usage of them indicates considerable possession of your language skills.
Posted by: boburShox | October 18, 2012 at 17:07
hi Simon,
Wring Test 2:
Some people think that young people should follow the traditional values of their society. Others think that young people should be free to act as individuals. Discuss both these views and give your opinion.
For this topic, i find it little difficult to organize the topic and supporting sentence, could u plz help on this? Thanks a lot.
Posted by: Borney | October 19, 2012 at 03:01
Thanks Simon
We are using all your advices and lessons in practice and are looking forward further hits.
Posted by: yusufboy | October 31, 2012 at 08:38
I have tried ielts for several times? But most of the time,my score was 6.5 Can you please tell me how can i improve my ielts skills to get a score of 7 overall...
Posted by: Pratheeksha Deepak | October 06, 2013 at 20:22
THANKS SIMON FOR EVERYTHING
Posted by: HIRAL | October 08, 2013 at 09:01
It is a very good introduction to using collocation in writing essays. They are worth in scores, I bet.
Posted by: Sary | October 10, 2013 at 14:00
thank you! i have been watching you since I started learning Ielts. It's really kind of you to daily post a huge information on this subjects :)
Posted by: Lili | October 14, 2013 at 15:25
hai simon am going to take the ielts xam in next month 16th please suggest me some ideas about how to get 7 band
Posted by: rajya lakshmi | October 28, 2013 at 08:23
Hello,
i took the test several times but my score same always 6.0.i do not understand whats my problem.all time writing score not improve.please give some suggestion.what should i do?
Posted by: yeasmin | October 15, 2014 at 03:39
Hello,
mm not perfect in writing module.. in test my band score 5.5.... plz help me sir
Posted by: hardeep | September 08, 2017 at 12:30