IELTS Idiom & Vocab Master / Guides
The 6 Types of Collocations in IELTS (With Examples)
Collocations are not one skill but several. This guide breaks them into the six structural types, with examples and notes on where each type earns marks in Speaking and Writing.
Why types matter
"Learn collocations" is vague advice. Collocations come in structural types, and learners are rarely weak in all of them equally. Most first-language interference hits verb+noun pairs; register problems hit intensifying collocations; countability problems hit quantifiers. Knowing the types lets you diagnose and fix the specific one costing you marks.
1. Verb + noun
The highest-frequency type and the biggest source of errors, because verbs rarely translate one-to-one between languages.
- make progress, a decision, an effort
- take responsibility, a risk, advantage of
- conduct research, a survey
- seize an opportunity
Typical error: "do a decision" / "make a photo." The noun is right; the verb is the collocation.
2. Adjective + noun
The type that makes writing sound precise. Essential for Task 2 essays.
- a pressing concern, a significant impact, compelling evidence, a substantial investment
3. Verb + adverb
Adds precision to how actions happen — useful in both Speaking and Writing.
- grow exponentially, argue convincingly, differ significantly, rise sharply
4. Noun + noun
Compact compounds that academic English prefers over long phrases.
- climate change, job market, health care, energy consumption, population growth
5. Intensifying collocations
English intensifiers are word-specific: things are highly unlikely but deeply concerned, bitterly cold but heavily dependent. Using the wrong intensifier ("strongly cold") is one of the most audible collocation errors in Speaking.
- highly effective / unlikely / competitive
- deeply concerned / rooted
- widely accepted / available
- a lasting impact
6. Quantifier collocations
Quantifiers must match countability: a great deal of information (uncountable), a wide range of options (countable plural), a substantial number of participants. Task 1 reports and Task 2 essays use these constantly, and mismatches ("a large amount of people") are marked as errors.
How to study by type
- Find your weak type. Review corrected writing or a recorded answer and classify each collocation error. Most candidates find 70% of their errors in one or two types.
- Study that type in isolation for a week. Concentrated exposure to one structure builds the pattern faster than mixed study.
- Quiz across types afterward. Mixed quizzes confirm the pattern holds when it is not the only thing you are thinking about — which is the exam condition.
Practice this in IELTS Idiom & Vocab Master
The app organizes its collocation content into these exact categories — verb+noun, adjective+noun, verb+adverb, noun+noun, intensifying, and quantifier collocations — so you can target the type you get wrong.