IELTS language bank: Formal Synonyms for Common Words

A small, recurring set of simple, high-frequency words does most of the damage to Lexical Resource scores in weaker Task 2 essays — not because these words are wrong, exactly, but because they're vague enough to fit almost any sentence and overused enough that an examiner sees them dozens of times a day. "Get," "big," "good," "bad," "show," "think," "a lot of," and "very" can genuinely carry a whole essay from introduction to conclusion without a single grammatical error, and still score no higher than Band 5-6 for vocabulary, because they never force you to say anything more specific than the vaguest possible version of your point. This article works through the formal alternatives worth learning for each, and — just as importantly — when reaching for the formal version actually helps and when it just makes a sentence sound stiff and over-dressed for what it's trying to say.

"Get" is probably the single most overused verb in weaker essays, largely because English lets it stand in for at least four genuinely different actions. "Obtain" and "acquire" work for gaining possession of something through effort or a process — "obtain a visa," "acquire a qualification" — with "acquire" carrying a slightly more gradual, effortful connotation than the more neutral "obtain." "Receive" works when something is given to you rather than actively pursued — "receive funding," "receive criticism" — and using "obtain" here instead would misrepresent your own agency in the event. "Achieve" is specific to attaining a goal or a desired outcome — "achieve a qualification," "achieve consensus" — and doesn't fit at all where nothing was actually being worked toward, so "achieve a cold" for "get a cold" would be a genuine misuse, not just an odd register choice.

"Big" and "small" resolve into more precise alternatives depending on what exactly is big or small. For "big": "substantial," "considerable," "significant" (for an amount or a difference — "a substantial increase"), "extensive" (for scope or coverage — "extensive damage"), "major" (for importance rather than physical size — "a major factor"). For "small": "minor," "marginal," "negligible" (for something close to zero or effectively unimportant), "modest" (a polite, slightly softened way of saying small, often used for numbers you don't want to sound dismissive about). Choosing among these isn't a random substitution exercise — "considerable" and "negligible" describe opposite ends of a scale, and picking the wrong one for what the underlying figure or effect actually was reads as either understating or overstating your own point.

"Good" and "bad" carry almost no information about what specifically makes something good or bad, which is exactly the vagueness a formal alternative should fix rather than just relabel. For "good": "beneficial" (produces a positive effect — "a beneficial policy"), "advantageous" (offers a strategic edge — "an advantageous position"), "effective" (achieves its intended purpose — "an effective solution"), "favourable" (works in someone's favour — "favourable conditions"). For "bad": "detrimental" (causes harm — "detrimental to public health"), "counterproductive" (works against its own stated goal — a genuinely useful word for an essay arguing a well-intentioned policy backfires), "adverse" (unfavourable, especially for conditions or effects — "adverse weather," "adverse consequences"), "inadequate" (insufficient for a purpose, not morally bad — "inadequate funding"). Each of these commits you to a specific claim about the nature of the harm or benefit, which is precisely the specificity a bare "bad" or "good" avoids.