IELTS grammar: Phrasal Verbs

A phrasal verb combines a verb with a particle — a preposition, an adverb, or both — to produce a meaning that is often impossible to guess from the individual words: "look into" means to investigate, "give up" means to quit, "come up with" means to invent or produce, and "put off" means to postpone, none of which follows obviously from "look," "give," "come," or "put" in isolation. This is specifically a Lexical Resource issue for Speaking rather than a Grammatical Range issue, since the grammar of a phrasal verb (subject, verb, particle, object) is usually simple — the challenge is knowing which combination of verb and particle produces which specific meaning, and using it in a register that matches the task. The error pattern here has two distinct halves that pull in opposite directions: candidates either avoid phrasal verbs almost entirely, which reads as stiff and overly formal in Speaking where natural idiomatic language is expected, or overuse informal phrasal verbs in Task 2 Writing, where a more formal single-word equivalent is usually the safer, higher-register choice.

Phrasal verbs split into two structural types, and knowing which type a given verb belongs to determines where the object can go in the sentence — a genuinely grammatical distinction, not just a stylistic one. Separable phrasal verbs allow the object to sit either after the particle or between the verb and the particle: "turn off the light" and "turn the light off" are both correct, though when the object is a pronoun, it must go between the verb and particle: "turn it off," never "turn off it." Inseparable phrasal verbs keep the verb and particle fixed together with the object always afterward: "look into the issue," not "look the issue into," and "look into it," not "look it into." Three-part phrasal verbs (verb plus two particles) are always inseparable: "come up with a solution," "look forward to the results," "get away with something" — the object always follows the full three-part unit. Knowing this pattern in advance avoids a specific, mechanical error that otherwise has to be checked verb by verb.

In Speaking, using phrasal verbs naturally and accurately is a genuine, examiner-visible marker of idiomatic control, precisely the kind of naturalness that separates a Band 7-8 answer from a technically correct but noticeably stiff Band 6 one. "I looked into a few options before deciding" sounds more like natural spoken English than "I investigated a few options," which, while entirely correct, reads as translated from formal writing rather than spoken the way a native speaker would actually talk. Similarly, "I ended up staying home instead" is far more natural in a spoken answer than "I ultimately decided to remain at home," and examiners specifically listen for this kind of natural lexical choice under Lexical Resource. The goal in Speaking preparation isn't memorising an enormous list of phrasal verbs, but building genuine, confident command of the twenty or thirty highest-frequency ones ("look into," "come up with," "give up," "end up," "deal with," "put up with," "get along with," "figure out") since these cover an outsized share of everyday spoken topics.