Vocabulary and Lexical Resource
What this section tests
Vocabulary and Lexical Resource assesses range, precision, and appropriateness of word choice. Concepts include collocation (words that naturally combine: make a decision, not do a decision), dependent prepositions (depend on, interested in), word families (decide/decision/decisive), register (formal versus informal), connotation (positive, negative, neutral), idioms and phrasal verbs, and confusable pairs (affect/effect, economic/economical, borrow/lend).
Traps to expect
- Near-synonyms with different collocations: do versus make, say versus tell.
- Connotation mismatch: childish (negative) versus childlike (positive) in a complimentary sentence.
- Register clash: slang in a formal report.
- Literal versus figurative: "break the ice" is not about ice.
- Word-form errors: choosing the right meaning but wrong part of speech.
Worked example
"The company's ___ growth surprised analysts." Options: economic, economical, economy, economically. Only economic (relating to the economy) fits before a noun. Economical means money-saving; economy is a noun; economically is an adverb.
Rule of thumb
Learn words in chunks, not alone. Record depend on, a strong argument, heavily influenced as whole units. When unsure between two options, test the collocation aloud - the natural-sounding one is usually correct, provided the register matches.
Practice habit
Group new words by topic and by connotation, and write one sentence per word using a fixed collocation.