IELTS

Remember those four criteria that are used to assess your speaking in the IELTS exam? Lexical resource is one of them (the other three are: Fluency and Coherence; Grammatical Range and Accuracy; Pronunciation, Accent, and Clarity)

Lexical resource is just a fancy name for range of vocabulary. It's important, because it's worth a quarter of your score, yaa a full 25%

You have probably spent many hours memorizing lists of vocabulary, and know many useful words; but if you don't use them in those ten minutes or so, you will have wasted your time, and you won't be getting all of that 25%

What can you do?

Don’t use short boring words (good/bad/happy/sad), use descriptive words and phrases (fantastic/awful/ecstatic/depressed) But you have to remember to do it. So practice. Try to notice every time you use a short, non-descriptive word. Then try to repeat what you have just said with a better word.

Use lots of phrasal verbs. They sound good in conversation. Perhaps it's even time to stop learning new words and concentrate on learning how to use the words you already know properly.

Of course you have to be careful and don't overdo it -- otherwise you might end up sounding ridiculous. So practice with your teacher and see what he says.

I have prepared extensive topic-based vocabulary lists for students who hire me. Many of the words in the lists are shown in context.