Eight items on the four skills of the vocabulary in context section. Answer first, then open the block.
Items 1 to 2: precise words
1. Replace “good” with a precise word: “The soup was good on a cold night.”
Answer
“The soup was hot and comforting on a cold night.” Both words say what was good about it. “Delicious” is acceptable, but it tells the reader less about the situation.
2. Replace “thing” in “He said a bad thing to his teacher.”
Answer
“He said something rude to his teacher”, or “made a rude remark”. “Rude” names the kind of bad, and “remark” names the thing.
Items 3 to 4: collocations
3. Correct: “She did a big effort and got a first place.”
Answer
“She made a big effort and won first place.” Effort goes with “make”, and you win a place, not get it.
4. Choose the natural phrase: heavy traffic / strong traffic.
Answer
Heavy traffic. The adjective heavy pairs with traffic, as with rain. “Strong traffic” is understood but sounds unnatural.
Items 5 to 6: translation patterns
5. Rewrite: “I am very like this song.”
Answer
“I like this song very much.” “Like” is already a verb, so it does not need “am”. “Very much” goes after the object.
6. Rewrite: “My teacher she always give us many homework.”
Answer
“My teacher always gives us a lot of homework.” The extra “she” is removed, “give” becomes “gives”, and “homework” is uncountable, so it takes “a lot of”, not “many”.
Items 7 to 8: reuse
7. Use essential in a school sentence and a home sentence.
Answer
School: “A dictionary is essential for every English lesson.” Home: “Clean water is essential for cooking and washing.” Each sentence has a clear situation, and the word means necessary.
8. Write a sentence using encourage in an email to a friend.
Answer
“I would like to encourage you to join the robotics club, because you enjoy building things.” The sentence fits an email tone and uses the pattern “encourage someone to”.
If you got these wrong
- Items 1 and 2: revisit replacing vague words with precise choices.
- Items 3 and 4: revisit learning collocations in complete sentences.
- Items 5 and 6: revisit avoiding direct translation.
- Items 7 and 8: revisit reusing vocabulary across new contexts.
For a teacher to go through your answers, see online one-to-one English tuition.