Here are five common IELTS phrasal verbs
Phrasal verbs are verbs like ‘work out’ that consist of a verb (e.g. ‘work’) and a preposition or an adverb (e.g. ‘out’) and that have a different meaning from the verb on its own. IELTS phrasal verbs, as I’ve called them, are phrasal verbs that are commonly used in the IELTS test, particularly in the IELTS Listening test, and are therefore important for you to know.
When you see or hear a phrasal verb, it’s important to remember that it may have a different meaning to when you saw or heard it before. The phrasal verb ‘work out’, for example, can mean ‘plan’, ‘calculate’ or ‘exercise’ depending on the situation in which it’s used.
Here are five IELTS phrasal verbs, i.e. phrasal verbs that have been used more than once in a single test or that have been used in more than one test.
In each case, check you understand what the phrasal verb can mean, or check the dictionary definition by clicking on it, and then look at how the phrasal verb is used in the example sentence.
- come across
- “I went into the library this afternoon to have a look at a newspaper and I came across something really interesting” (taken from Section 1 of Listening Test 1 in Cambridge IELTS 8)
- deal with
- “I’ll deal with the questions at the end [of the presentation]” (taken from Section 3 of the Listening test in the Official IELTS Practice Materials)
- find out
- “Well, the first thing is to find out exactly what’s required in the exams” (taken from Section 3 of Listening Test 4 in Cambridge IELTS 8)
- sort out
- “Then you can sort out your revision priorities” (taken from Section 3 of Listening Test 4 in Cambridge IELTS 8)
- work out
- “Look, let’s sit down and work out what we’ve got to do for this project” (taken from Section 3 of the Listening test in the Official IELTS Practice Materials)
It would be better to find out what these IELTS phrasal verbs mean now rather than having to work out what they mean in your IELTS Listening test.
To find out what other vocabulary is important for the IELTS test, have a look in the ‘Vocabulary for IELTS‘ category of our blog.
Pete
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That’s really useful. You guys should add more like these examples.
Thank you
I’m glad you found the post useful, Ali.
We’ve just posted some more phrasal verbs in our post ‘Phrasal verbs for IELTS Speaking‘.
Pete
Could you give us the meaning of each phrasal verb which you’ve mentioned previously to give us an indication that we got the meaning?
That’s a very good idea, Hussah. Here you go:
1. to come across = to find something by chance
2. to deal with = to accept and control a difficult situation
3. to find out = to discover or get a fact or piece of information
4. to sort out = to arrange
5. to work out = to understand
It can be really difficult to work out the meaning of phrasal verbs, especially when they have more than one meaning. If you look at the dictionary entry at the link above for the phrasal verb ‘sort out’, it has six different meanings!
Pete
Hi Sir
I really appreciate it, several times I came across these verbs and I did not realized that they have particular meaning when combine together.
Thanks a lot sir
Evening,
I am writing IELTS on 21st April 2012.
How do I improve in Reading and listening band.Please share some tips.
Hi Rakesh,
There are lots of tips the IELTS Reading and Listening tests in the ‘IELTS reading tips‘ and ‘IELTS listening tips‘ categories of this blog. To start with, check out our blog posts ‘Don’t get stuck on the difficult questions‘ and ‘You now have half a minute…‘.
Good luck with your test next week,
Pete
Thanks for your reply.Your blogs are very informative.
Sir, plz give me a link for more phrasal verbs.
Thank you !
Hi Thadan,
Have a look at our blog post called ‘Phrasal verbs for IELTS Speaking‘.
Pete
Thank you so much!