Vocabulary
Shops, spending habits and consumer culture, for speaking and for Task 2. With a practice exercise.
IELTS vocabulary for shopping works at two levels. Speaking Part 1 asks whether you enjoy shopping and where you buy things. Part 3 and Task 2 then ask bigger questions about consumer culture, online shopping replacing local shops and whether people buy more than they need.
Advertising has its own page. This one covers what happens once people decide to buy: where, how and why they spend.
The words
Six groups. Learn one group at a time and write a sentence of your own for each word.
A retailer: a business that sells to the public
A chain store: one of many shops owned by the same company
An independent shop: a shop that is not part of a chain
A shopping centre: a building containing many shops, a mall in American English
An online marketplace: a website where many sellers offer goods
A bargain: something bought for less than its usual price
To shop around: to compare prices in different places
Impulse buying: buying something without planning to
A refund: money given back for an item returned
Value for money: good quality for the price paid
Disposable income: money left after paying for essentials
To splash out: to spend a lot on something enjoyable
Credit: buying now and paying later
Consumer debt: money people owe for things they have bought
Overpriced: costing more than it is worth
Consumerism: a culture focused on buying goods
Materialism: valuing possessions above other things
A throwaway culture: a habit of discarding things rather than repairing them
Fast fashion: cheap clothing made quickly to follow trends
Status symbol: something owned to show wealth or importance
E-commerce: buying and selling online
The high street: the main shopping street of a town
Footfall: the number of people visiting a shop or area
Home delivery: goods brought to the buyer's door
Ethical consumption: buying with social and environmental effects in mind
You go shopping and do the shopping. The first is the activity, the second is the routine task of buying food and household items.
Cheap can mean low in quality as well as low in price. Inexpensive and affordable avoid that meaning when you want to be positive.
Method
Six ways these words earn marks rather than just filling space.
Impulse buying names exactly what candidates often describe in a whole sentence. Precise terms like this are what Lexical Resource rewards.
You make a purchase, pick up a bargain, ask for a refund, splash out on something and run up debt.
Is online shopping killing the high street? Are people too materialistic? Should companies be responsible for waste? These recur in Part 3 and Task 2.
Splash out and pick up a bargain are natural in speaking. Consumer debt and ethical consumption suit Task 2. Both sets are worth knowing.
Describing something you like as cheap can suggest poor quality. Good value or affordable says what you mean.
Shopping, clothing, furniture and luggage are uncountable. A furniture and clothings are common errors on this topic.
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?
1Buying something you had not planned to buy is ______.
Impulse buying. Shopping around is comparing prices, which is the opposite habit.
2Money left after paying for essentials such as rent and food is ______ income.
Disposable income. It is the fixed term and a key idea in essays about spending.
3A shop that is not part of a larger company is ______.
An independent shop. A chain store is one of many owned by the same company.
4Which is correct?
Some new furniture. Furniture is uncountable, so it takes no a and no plural.
5Which is the natural pairing?
Pick up a bargain. It is the natural spoken collocation. You can also get a bargain.
6The number of people visiting a shopping area is its ______.
Footfall. Turnover is the money a business takes, which is a different measure.
7Valuing possessions above most other things is ______.
Materialism describes a personal value. Consumerism describes a culture or economy built on buying.
8Which sentence is more precise?
B. Two precise terms and a clear cause, in fewer words.
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 a frequent Part 1 topic, and consumer culture and online shopping appear in Part 3 and Task 2.
Go shopping is the activity of visiting shops. Do the shopping is the routine job of buying food and household items.
It can be. Cheap can suggest low quality, so affordable or good value is safer when you mean something positive.
Consumerism describes a culture or economy based on buying. Materialism describes a person who values possessions highly.
No. Furniture, clothing and luggage are uncountable. Say a piece of furniture if you need to count it.
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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