Grammar
Mainly a speaking tool, with quiet value in reading and listening. With an error correction exercise.
Extreme adjectives in IELTS are strong words that already contain the idea of very: not very tired but exhausted, not very big but enormous. In the speaking test they let you escape the string of very that limits so many Part 2 answers.
They belong mainly to speaking. In Task 2 they are usually too emotional for the register, though a General Training informal letter is a different matter. Even where you never produce them, recognising them matters, because reading passages and listening recordings use them constantly.
The rules
Six points, including where these words do not belong.
Gradable adjectives come in degrees: cold, colder, very cold. Extreme adjectives are already at the end of the scale: freezing, boiling, enormous, exhausted, furious, delighted, terrified.
Very goes with gradable adjectives. Extreme adjectives take absolutely, completely, utterly or totally. Very exhausted is wrong; absolutely exhausted is right. Really works with both.
Tired, exhausted. Big, enormous. Small, tiny. Angry, furious. Happy, delighted. Cold, freezing. Hot, boiling. Interesting, fascinating. Surprised, astonished. Bad, awful. Good, superb. Frightened, terrified.
Speaking Parts 1 and 2. A story told with exhausted and delighted is more precise and more natural than one built from very tired and very happy, and Lexical Resource rewards precision.
Most of these are too emotional for Task 2. The situation is awful is not academic register; the situation is severe is. They are fine in a GT informal letter, where the tone is personal.
You may never write furious, but a reading passage or a listening recording may well use it. Knowing that it means very angry protects an answer even if you never produce the word yourself.
Method
Six ways this earns marks under Grammatical Range and Accuracy.
Learn the ordinary adjective and the extreme one together. The pair is easier to remember than either word alone and it fixes the scale in your mind.
Learn absolutely exhausted as one phrase rather than learning exhausted and then guessing at what goes in front of it.
A Part 2 answer in which everything is enormous, fascinating and utterly astonishing sounds rehearsed. Precision means matching the word to the reality.
If very appears four times in one answer, the vocabulary rather than the fluency is what is limiting you.
For an essay, choose severe, substantial, significant or considerable instead. Register is part of Lexical Resource.
A passage that describes a reaction as astonishing may be paraphrased in the question as very surprising. Recognising the pair is what lets you match them.
Practice
Each sentence contains one error. Choose the correction.
Read the whole sentence before you choose. Every option below is a real form of English, so the question is not which word exists but which one this sentence needs.
This is how examiners see your writing: not as rules broken, but as sentences that do or do not work.
1Correct the error: After the flight I was very exhausted and went straight to bed.
Absolutely exhausted. Exhausted already means very tired, so very cannot intensify it further. Extreme adjectives take absolutely, completely, utterly or really.
2Correct the error: The view from the top was very enormous.
Absolutely enormous. Same rule. If you want very, use the gradable adjective instead and say very big.
3Which sentence is best in a Task 2 essay?
Severe. The other three are emotional rather than academic. Register is assessed under Lexical Resource, so an accurate word in the wrong register still costs marks.
4Correct the error: She was absolutely angry when she heard about the decision.
Absolutely furious. The modifier and the adjective must match. Angry is gradable so it takes very; if you want absolutely, move up to the extreme adjective.
5A listening recording describes a result as astonishing. Which answer paraphrases it?
Very surprising. This is the passive value of extreme adjectives. You may never say astonishing yourself, but recognising it as the strong form of surprised is what makes the match.
6Correct the error: The room was very tiny, with space for only one desk.
Absolutely tiny. Tiny is the extreme form of small, so it cannot take very. Either say absolutely tiny or drop back to very small.
That is normal, and it is the whole problem with grammar study. Recognising an error in a sentence someone has told you contains one is far easier than finding it in your own essay, where every sentence looks correct because you wrote it.
The complete IELTS course on IELTStestONLINE has video lessons on every question type, many more exercises like this one, and your own support tutor you can ask when an answer does not make sense. Take a look at the complete course
Choosing the right option from four is not the same as producing the structure accurately under time in an essay.
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A strong adjective that already contains the idea of very, such as exhausted, enormous, furious or delighted. They are also called non-gradable adjectives.
Because exhausted already means very tired. Extreme adjectives take absolutely, completely, utterly, totally or really instead.
Usually not. Most are too emotional for academic register. Prefer severe, substantial, significant or considerable in an essay.
In an informal letter, yes. The register there is personal, so delighted and exhausted read naturally.
Yes, passively. Recognising that astonishing means very surprising is often exactly what a paraphrase question is testing.
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