Academic Word List Exercises

A little about the Academic Word List

My daily word exercises are based on the Academic Word List (AWL). The AWL is a of the words most used in academic writing across all specialties (science, law,medicine,economics etc). As such they are precisely the words to be used in academic IELTS.

The AWL contains 570 word families subdivided in 10 lists with list 1 containing the most frequently used words and list 10 the least. The idea is that you should start off learning list 1 and work your way through to list 10.

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IELTS essay exercises using the Academic Word List

These interactive exercises are based on my sample IELTS essays. For each of my essays, you will find an exercise where you can read the essay and then practise  rewriting it with the words from the Academic Word List.

• Diet and health education
• Fuel and the environment
• Homes
• Education – compulsory education
• Education – the curriculum
• Families and modern life
• Museums
• Nuclear technology
• Space research
• Television
• Unemployment

List 1 word exercises

A complete set of exercises on every head word in list one of the academic word list. These exercises focus on how to use these words and give you practice in:

• prepositions
• collocations
• word formation

List 1 vocabulary review exercises

1. review exercise 1
2. review exercise 2

Review exercises on nouns in list 1

A series of exercises to help you with noun formation with some of the most useful words from list 1

• check how to make the nouns – easy 
• make sentences – fairly simple
• make paragraphs – more challenging
• make paragraphs 2 
• make paragraphs 3
• make paragraphs 4

List 2 word exercises

A complete set of exercises on every head word in list two of the academic word list. These exercises focus on how to use these words and give you practice in:

• prepositions
• collocations
• word formation

List 3 words

List 4 words