Why 60 Words is Enough
The Lexical Resource band descriptor rewards the skilful use of less common vocabulary and collocation — not raw volume. Ninety percent of Band 7 candidates recycle the same handful of high-value words in every essay, and it works.
Learn each word in a topic phrase, not in isolation. "Significant impact" and "drastic rise" are worth more than ten memorised synonyms you cannot place naturally.
- Evaluation: significant, substantial, considerable, marginal, dramatic, modest.
- Causes & effects: contribute to, stem from, give rise to, result in, prompt.
- Comparison: whereas, in contrast, compared with, relative to, by far.
- Opinion: arguably, undoubtedly, from my perspective, it could be argued that.
- Build your own phrase bank: every time you read a Band 8 sample, copy three collocations into a notebook.