Vocabulary
Family types, parenting and social change, a staple of speaking and Task 2. With a practice exercise.
IELTS vocabulary for family is tested in two very different ways. In speaking Part 1 you talk about your own family, and in Part 3 and Task 2 you discuss how families are changing, who should look after elderly parents and how much time children spend with their parents.
Most candidates can say mother, father and brother. What separates the bands is the vocabulary for family structures, roles and change, used with the right partners.
The words
Six groups. Learn one group at a time and write a sentence of your own for each word.
A nuclear family: parents and their children living together
An extended family: several generations, or aunts, uncles and cousins, living together or closely involved
A single-parent family: one parent raising the children
A blended family: a family that includes children from a previous relationship
Immediate family: your closest relatives: parents, siblings, partner and children
Siblings: brothers and sisters, the neutral formal word
Relatives: anyone in your family, not only the close ones
In-laws: the family of the person you are married to
A distant relative: someone related to you, but not closely
Ancestors: the family members who lived long before you
To bring up: to raise a child, the everyday phrasal verb
Upbringing: the way a child is raised
Discipline: teaching children to follow rules
Role model: someone a child copies and admires
Childcare: looking after children while parents work
To get on with: to have a good relationship with someone
To take after: to resemble an older relative
To fall out: to argue and stop being friendly
Close-knit: describes a family or community whose members support each other
Estranged: no longer in contact with a family member
Dual-income household: a home where both partners work
The breakdown of the family: the argument that traditional family structures are weakening
Divorce rate: the proportion of marriages that end in divorce
Care for the elderly: looking after older family members
Work-life balance: the division of time between work and home
Parents means mother and father only. Other family members are relatives or relations, never parents, which is a very common error for speakers of several languages.
Family can take a singular or plural verb in British English: my family is large, my family are all teachers. Either is accepted, but be consistent.
Method
Six ways these words earn marks rather than just filling space.
Siblings is more formal than brothers and sisters, which suits Task 2. In speaking Part 1, brothers and sisters sounds more natural, and that is not a lower-band choice.
You bring up children, start a family, support a family, spend quality time with them and care for elderly parents. Wrong pairings are noticed even when both words are real.
Should adult children look after their parents? Are families less close than in the past? Should both parents work? These recur, and the social change group answers all three.
Families are becoming smaller is a defensible claim. Families no longer care about each other is not. Cautious language such as tend to and in many countries keeps an argument credible.
Take after, get on with, look after and bring up are everyday spoken English. They are exactly what Part 1 rewards and they are easy to get slightly wrong.
In Part 1, a short answer with one detail is enough. Listing every relative uses time and shows no range.
Practice
Choose the answer that fits each sentence.
Read the whole sentence before you choose. Several options will be real words, and often more than one will nearly fit.
The test is precision: which word, or which pairing, means exactly what the sentence needs?
1Parents and their children living together without other relatives is a ______ family.
Nuclear. An extended family includes other relatives, and a blended family includes children from previous relationships.
2My grandparents, aunts and cousins are all my ______.
Relatives. Parents means mother and father only. Ancestors lived long before you.
3She looks and sounds just like her mother. She really ______ her.
Takes after. Get on with is about having a good relationship, which is a different idea.
4Which is the natural pairing?
Start a family. It means to have your first child. The other verbs are not used with family in this sense.
5A family whose members support each other closely is described as ______.
Close-knit. Estranged is the opposite: no longer in contact.
6The way a child is raised is their ______.
Upbringing. Childcare is looking after children while parents work, which is only part of it.
7A home in which both partners work is a ______ household.
Dual-income. It is the standard term in essays about childcare and working parents.
8Which sentence is more precise?
B. The same idea, made specific, with a precise term and a clear cause and effect. This is what Lexical Resource rewards.
That is the commonest vocabulary problem at Band 6, and it is very hard to see in your own writing because each word looks correct on its own.
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
Recognising a word in a multiple choice is not the same as producing it accurately under time.
IELTStestONLINE keeps every score you get in one place, gives you an estimated band as you work, and assesses your writing and speaking against the four criteria so you can see where you stand before test day. See what full membership includes
Yes. It is one of the most frequent speaking Part 1 topics, and changing family structures appear regularly in Part 3 and Task 2.
Parents are your mother and father only. Everyone else in your family is a relative or a relation.
In British English it can take either verb. My family is large and my family are all teachers are both accepted, as long as you are consistent.
You can, but brothers and sisters is more natural in Part 1. Siblings suits Part 3 and written answers better.
Whether families are less close than in the past, or who should be responsible for looking after elderly people.
Full membership
Technique takes most candidates to about Band 6.5. Past that, the limit is usually the range of language you can use accurately, and knowing where you stand is the first step.
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