IELTS Vocabulary: 'less common' not 'advanced'

In the comments below Wednesday's lesson, a few people said that they didn't see any "advanced" vocabulary* in my essay. But examiners are not looking for "advanced" vocabulary; they are looking for "less common" vocabulary.

"Less common" vocabulary means words and phrases that most students wouldn't think to use in their essays. For example, in the first line of my essay, I used the verb "to rival". You might know the noun "rival", but have you ever used it as a verb? This is not an "advanced" word, but it is certainly less commonly used by IELTS candidates, and the examiner would be impressed to see it used in this way.

Here are the "less common" phrases from my essay:

• the Internet is beginning to rival newspapers
• the traditional press
• vital source of information
• the Internet age
• traditional means of communicating
• rural areas
• the ability or opportunity to get online
• trusted as reliable sources
• employ professional journalists and editors
• news in real time
• gadgets and mobile devices
• contribute with our own updates on social media
• an explosion in the use of platforms

Note:
Although you probably understand the phrases above, most candidates would not use them in their essays.

*I never use the terms "advanced vocabulary" or "difficult vocabulary". Anyone can find a "big" word in the dictionary and translate it. The difficult skill is to use words together in collocations and phrases.

Comments

[Mohammad]

I agree with you...there are many advanced words in dictionaries. However " less common " should be used in writing task 2.

[HuynhMinh]

Thanks you for your report, i really want to learn writing skills in that way.

[Le Moon]

Tks Simon. However, if many people read this post and learn to use these less common phrases, they may become most common ones.

[sukhvir]

sir please give tips to write introduction also . your video related to conclusion was very effective please provide something like this for introduction.

[Nguyen Thi Binh]

Hello teacher Simon. My name is Binh and I am preparing myself for an IELTS test. However, I have difficulty in writing and speaking skills. As you said on the blog, we need to use collocations and uncommon words, but I don't know many. Perhaps when I listen to a tape/ a conversation or read an article, I hear people use words that I know, but when writing and speaking, I can't remember to use them. So how can I improve this? Please give me some advice.Thank you!

[lianxue]

Sir. With all due respect, I do not think the idea of "the Internet news is not environment damaging" is fully extended. Can you give some explanations about this point?

[Kannupriya]

Sir, I am very new to ilets i don't have much idea about it. I do not know my weak points as well as my strong points will you please help me to make it easier please reply as soon as possible.