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How to Learn Vocabulary for IELTS and TOEIC

VocabNoteUpdated 6 min read

To learn vocabulary for IELTS or TOEIC, take your words from practice tests and from texts on the exam's usual topics, learn each one with its partners and its other forms, and practise recognising the same idea in different words. A list of "advanced" words learned alone won't raise your score, because both exams test words in context.

The two exams ask different things of your vocabulary, so the first step is knowing which job you're preparing for.

What each exam asks of your vocabulary

IELTS has four papers: Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking. In Reading and Listening you need to understand a wide range of words, quickly. In Writing and Speaking you need to use words: the public band descriptors list "lexical resource" as one of four criteria for each of those two papers. They reward range and flexibility, but also accuracy. A rare word used in the wrong way doesn't help you.

TOEIC Listening & Reading is two hours of multiple-choice questions set in everyday working life: offices, meetings, emails, travel, orders, schedules. You never write or speak, so the job is fast, sure recognition, plus knowing which form of a word fits a sentence.

IELTS TOEIC Listening & Reading
Setting General and academic topics Workplace and everyday business
You must Understand and produce Recognise quickly
Typical trap The same idea in other words Similar-looking word forms

Take your words from real test material

The best source of exam vocabulary is the exam. Work through an official practice test or a text on a typical topic, and collect words in two passes:

  1. During the test, don't stop. Answer under time pressure, as you would on the day.
  2. Afterwards, go back. Mark the words that cost you an answer or slowed you down. Those are your words.

A word that cost you a mark is easy to remember, because it comes with a reason. Limit yourself to about ten to fifteen words from each test or text. Choose the ones that look general enough to appear again (decline, reluctant, invoice, postpone) over names and rare technical terms.

The guide on learning words from reading explains how to guess a word from its context first, which is exactly the skill you need when an unknown word appears in the real test.

Learn the usual topics

Both exams return to the same areas, so vocabulary organised by topic pays off.

  • IELTS: education, work, health, the environment, technology, cities and transport, the media. For Writing and Speaking, you need to give opinions on these, so learn phrases you can argue with: raise awareness, have an impact on, the main cause of, a growing number of.
  • TOEIC: meetings, hiring, sales and orders, deliveries, travel, finance, office equipment. Learn the words that do things: confirm a reservation, submit a report, place an order, issue a refund, extend a deadline.

For IELTS Academic, there's also the Academic Word List: 570 word families that appear across many university subjects, such as analyse, significant, factor and consist. It's a useful checklist for Reading and Writing Task 2. Use it to sort the words you meet, not as a list to memorise from the top.

Learn each word with its partners and its family

Exam questions rarely test a word alone. They test whether you know what goes with it and which form fits.

Partners (collocations). In IELTS Writing, natural pairs are what make vocabulary sound right:

  • pose a threat, meet a need, reach a conclusion
  • a significant increase, a sharp fall, a steady rise
  • heavily dependent, widely available

The second group is what you need for describing charts in Writing Task 1, together with comparatives and superlatives: "Sales rose more sharply in 2020 than in any other year."

Family (word forms). TOEIC Part 5 often gives you four forms of one word and one gap:

  • "The manager made a final ________ on the budget." (decide / decision / decisive / decisively)
A TOEIC Part 5 word-form questionA TOEIC Part 5 question: “The manager made a final ________ on the budget.” with four options, decide, decision, decisive and decisively. Decision is ticked, because after “a final” the gap needs a noun. Below, the word family learned as one unit: decide (verb), decision (noun), decisive (adjective), decisively (adverb).TOEIC Part 5After “a final”, the gap needs a nounThe manager madea finalon the budget.AdecideBdecisionCdecisiveDdecisivelyLearn the word as a familydecideverbdecisionnoundecisiveadjectivedecisivelyadverb
A TOEIC Part 5 word-form questionA TOEIC Part 5 question: “The manager made a final ________ on the budget.” with four options, decide, decision, decisive and decisively. Decision is ticked, because after “a final” the gap needs a noun. Below, the word family learned as one unit: decide (verb), decision (noun), decisive (adjective), decisively (adverb).TOEIC Part 5After “a final”, thegap needs a nounThe manager madea finalon the budget.AdecideBdecisionCdecisiveDdecisivelyLearn the word as a familydecideverbdecisionnoundecisiveadjectivedecisivelyadverb
Learn the whole family and these questions take a few seconds

The answer is decision, because the gap follows a final and needs a noun. If you learn a word as a family (decide, decision, decisive, decisively), these questions take a few seconds. The same habit helps in IELTS Writing, where you can avoid repeating a word by changing its form: "The economy grew" becomes "economic growth".

Practise spotting paraphrase

In IELTS Reading and Listening, the question almost never uses the same words as the text. This is the most common reason for a wrong answer when you "knew all the words".

  • The question says: "Most children now spend less time outdoors."
  • The text says: "The majority of young people rarely play outside these days."

So when you learn a word, add one other way to say it:

  • increase → go up, rise, grow
  • important → significant, essential, crucial
  • problem → issue, difficulty, challenge
  • cheap → affordable, inexpensive, low-cost

Be careful: these aren't always interchangeable. Crucial is stronger than important, and cheap can sound negative where affordable doesn't. Keep a sentence with each one so you know where it fits.

A good exercise after every practice test: for each question you got wrong, underline the words in the question and the matching words in the text. You'll build your own paraphrase list from real exam language.

Spotting paraphraseA question, “Most children now spend less time outdoors.”, and the text, “The majority of young people rarely play outside these days.” Matching colours link the parts that say the same thing: Most and The majority of, children and young people, now and these days, spend less time outdoors and rarely play outside. Below, one word with other ways to say it: increase, go up, rise, grow.Mostchildrennowspend less time outdoors.The majority ofyoung peoplerarely play outsidethese days.QuestionTextAdd one other way to say itincreasego uprisegrow
Spotting paraphraseA question, “Most children now spend less time outdoors.”, and the text, “The majority of young people rarely play outside these days.” Matching colours link the parts that say the same thing: Most and The majority of, children and young people, now and these days, spend less time outdoors and rarely play outside. Below, one word with other ways to say it: increase, go up, rise, grow.Mostchildrennowspend less time outdoors.The majority ofyoung peoplerarely play outsidethese days.QuestionTextAdd one other way to say itincreasego uprisegrow
The question rarely uses the text’s own words

Don't memorise "band 9 words"

Lists of impressive words are popular, and they do damage. An essay with plethora, myriad and ubiquitous forced into it reads worse than one with plain words used well. Compare:

  • "There is a plethora of peoples who thinks that…" ✗
  • "Many people believe that…" ✓

The first has a rare word and three mistakes. The second is correct and clear. A better way to raise your level is small upgrades you fully control: a big problem → a serious problem; get better → improve; more and more people → a growing number of people. In formal writing, the passive voice also helps you sound objective: "The figures were collected over ten years."

In Speaking, sounding natural matters more than sounding academic. "I'm really into photography" is better than "I am passionate regarding photography".

A weekly plan

A plan for eight weeks or more, about thirty minutes a day:

  • Day 1: one test section or topic text. Timed. Then collect ten to fifteen words.
  • Days 2–3: learn them. For each word: meaning, one sentence from the text, its partners, its family, one paraphrase. Put them on flashcards with a gap sentence on the front.
  • Day 4: use them. IELTS: write a paragraph or record a one-minute answer using five of the words. TOEIC: write five short workplace sentences, such as an email line or a notice.
  • Day 5: a second section or text, and ten more words.
  • Days 6–7: review. Test yourself on this week's words and the words due from earlier weeks.

That's twenty to thirty words a week, or roughly 160 to 240 over eight weeks, all taken from the kind of English the exam uses. Stop adding new words in the last week and only review.

Recap

  • IELTS needs words you can understand and use. TOEIC needs fast recognition and word forms.
  • Collect words from practice tests: the ones that cost you a mark.
  • Learn them by topic, with their partners and their word family.
  • Practise paraphrase, because the test rarely repeats the text's words.
  • Use plain words accurately before you reach for rare ones.