Vocabulary
The topic that appears more than any other in Task 2. With a practice exercise.
IELTS vocabulary for the environment is the most useful topic set you can learn, because the environment appears in Task 2 more often than any other subject and turns up regularly in speaking Part 3 and listening Section 4.
The words below are the ones examiners expect at Band 7 and above. What matters is not how unusual they are, but whether you pair them correctly and use them in the right place.
The words
Six groups, and the pairings that go with them.
Emissions — gases released into the air.
Contamination — when something harmful gets into water, soil or food.
Landfill — a place where waste is buried.
Toxic waste — waste that is poisonous.
Air quality — how clean the air is.
Global warming — the long-term rise in temperature.
Climate change — the broader change in weather patterns.
Carbon footprint — the total emissions caused by a person or activity.
Greenhouse gases — gases that trap heat.
Renewable energy — energy from sources that do not run out, such as wind or solar.
Fossil fuels — coal, oil and gas.
Non-renewable — a source that will eventually be used up.
Energy efficiency — using less energy for the same result.
Biodiversity — the variety of living things in a place.
Deforestation — the clearing of forests.
Endangered species — animals or plants at risk of dying out.
Habitat loss — when the place a species lives is destroyed.
Sustainable — able to continue without using up resources.
To reduce, to cut, to curb emissions.
To conserve, to preserve, to protect a habitat.
To recycle, to reuse, to dispose of waste.
To offset — to balance harm in one place with benefit elsewhere.
You cut emissions, tackle pollution, raise awareness, impose a ban, introduce legislation, face consequences. These fixed pairings are what examiners notice at Band 7.
Method
Six points, and the second one costs marks most often.
Cut emissions is natural English. Decrease emissions is acceptable. Destroy emissions is not, even though every word is real.
Global warming is the temperature rise. Climate change is the wider set of effects, including storms and rainfall. Using them as synonyms is a precision error.
Pollute, pollution, pollutant, polluted. Being able to move between forms lets you avoid repeating the same sentence shape.
Catastrophic, devastating and disastrous are correct but easy to overuse. One in an essay is effective; four is not.
Deforestation in itself is abstract. Naming a consequence, such as soil erosion or habitat loss, turns a mentioned idea into a developed one.
Prepared vocabulary helps. Prepared sentences dropped into a question they do not fit are recognised by examiners immediately.
Practice
Choose the word or phrase that fits.
Several options in each question are real words used correctly elsewhere.
What is being tested is whether you know which word belongs in this particular sentence, and which words go together naturally in English.
1Governments have been urged to ______ carbon emissions.
Cut. Cut emissions is the standard pairing, along with reduce and curb. The other three are real verbs that do not go with emissions in English.
2Energy from wind and sunlight is described as ______.
Renewable. The source does not run out. Efficient is about using less energy, which is a different idea.
3The variety of living things in an area is its ______.
Biodiversity. A habitat is the place a species lives, and an ecosystem is the system of living things and their surroundings together.
4Which pair means different things?
Global warming and climate change. Global warming is the temperature rise. Climate change covers the wider effects. Treating them as the same is a common precision error.
5A species at risk of dying out is ______.
Endangered. Extinct means it has already died out completely, so the two are not interchangeable.
6Which is the natural pairing?
Impose a ban. You also introduce legislation, raise awareness and tackle pollution. Learning these pairings is what moves Lexical Resource above Band 6.
Almost every candidate does this with topic vocabulary, and it is very hard to notice 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
Choosing from four options is easier than producing the right word yourself, in an essay, under time.
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Yes, the most common in Task 2. It also appears regularly in speaking Part 3 and in Section 4 of the listening test.
Global warming is the long-term rise in average temperature. Climate change is the wider set of effects that follow, including changes in rainfall and storms.
No. You are assessed on your English, not on your science. Plausible general knowledge is enough, and examples do not have to be verifiable.
A pair of words that naturally go together, such as cut emissions or raise awareness. Using the wrong pairing is noticeable even when both words are correct.
Sparingly. One strong word can be effective, but repeated use reads as exaggeration and does not raise your Lexical Resource band.
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