Dealing with vocabulary in the Reading test

What to do with unknown words in IELTS Reading - using context, word parts and reference words - and how to build the academic vocabulary the test rewards.

Every IELTS passage contains words you do not know. That is deliberate: the test is designed so that even native speakers meet unfamiliar terms. The question is never ‘do you know every word?’ but ‘can you cope when you do not?’ This lesson gives you tools for coping in the test and a plan for learning the words that matter most.

Rule one: most unknown words do not matter

Look at this sentence:

The bird’s plumage, a mottled blend of ochre and umber, renders it almost invisible among dead leaves.

You may not know plumage, mottled, ochre, umber or renders. Do you understand the sentence? Yes: the bird’s colouring makes it hard to see among dead leaves. Unless a question asks specifically about one of those words, you can read straight on.

So when you meet a word you do not know, ask: is a question pointing at this sentence? If not, ignore the word. If so, use the tools below.

Tool 1: Context

Writers of academic texts constantly explain themselves. Learn to notice the signals.

You rarely need an exact dictionary meaning. ‘Some kind of disease’, ‘a positive quality’, ‘a tool’ is usually enough to answer the question.

Tool 2: Word parts

Many academic words are built from recognisable pieces.

Common prefixes

Common suffixes tell you the part of speech, which is valuable in completion tasks.

Deforestation has destabilised the hillsides. de- (reverse) + stabil (stable) + -ise (verb) + -d → ‘made no longer stable’.

Tool 3: Reference words

Texts avoid repetition by using words that point back to something already mentioned. If you lose track of what it or this refers to, you can misread a whole paragraph.

Farmers are paid to leave an uncultivated strip along the water’s edge. Only when such measures fail are animals trapped and moved.

Such measures = the strip (and the other protections listed before it). A question might well ask what happens ‘if protective steps do not work’.

Both dams and canals were built, the former for storing water and the latter for moving it.

The former = dams; the latter = canals.

When you read closely for an answer, stop at every reference word in the key sentence and check what it points to.

Tool 4: The glossary

If a passage has a footnote such as *horticultural: relating to the growing of plants, read it. It is there because the word is needed to understand something that will be tested.

Building vocabulary before the test

You cannot learn ‘all the words’, so be selective.

Learn the high-frequency academic words

A fairly small set of words appears across all academic subjects: analyse, approach, assess, concept, consist, context, data, derive, establish, evidence, factor, function, indicate, involve, issue, method, occur, period, principle, process, require, research, respond, role, significant, source, structure, theory, vary. These are worth learning thoroughly, with their families (analyse → analysis, analyst, analytical).

Learn the language of IELTS ideas

The same ideas return in every test. Collect synonyms for each.

Record words the right way

For each new word, write:

1. the sentence where you met it (context is what makes a word memorable);
2. a simple meaning in English;
3. other members of the family;
4. one or two words it commonly goes with (pose a threat, a widespread belief).

Review after one day, one week and one month. Ten words learned properly are worth fifty glanced at once.

Try it

Work out the approximate meaning of each word in bold from the context.

1. Unlike the arid interior, where rain may not fall for years, the coast is green and fertile.
2. The treatment proved efficacious: within a week, nine out of ten patients had recovered.
3. Villagers once bartered, exchanging grain for cloth or tools, long before coins were introduced.
4. The custom has become obsolete; nobody under sixty remembers it being practised.

Answers: 1 very dry · 2 effective, successful · 3 traded goods without money · 4 no longer used, out of date

Key points

• Ignore unknown words unless a question depends on them.
• Use context signals: definitions, examples, contrasts, restatements.
• Break long words into prefix, root and suffix.
• Always check what it, this, such, the former/the latter refer to.
• Learn academic word families and synonym sets for common IELTS ideas.

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