Using Collocation to Boost Your IELTS Score - Key Word: A Waste of

If you are someone wanting to sound more natural and fluent during your IELTS exam, you learning collocations is really important. Collocations are groups of words that tend to appear together, and you using them perfectly can defintely improve your lexical resource band score in both the Speaking and Writing modules. 

One most common and useful collocation you often tend to hear and read in English is “a waste of.” This phrase “a waste of” is usually used to describe situations where something is valuable just like time, money, or even energy and that is not used effectively. For example, we may say “a waste of time,” “a waste of cash,” or “a waste of efforts.” 

This will also demonstrate that you can understand how words work together in real life contexts and those are what the IELTS examiners value highly. In this article, we shall explore this collocations “a waste of,” and practice some exercises based on this to improve your lexical resource IELTS band score!

Practice Exercise: Key Word - A Waste of

These phrases are extremely common in IELTS Writing Task 2, wherein you may need to discuss topics related to government spending, modern technology, or certain lifestyle habits. Hence, mastering the perfect usage of the collocation, “a waste of” will surely help you to express your opinions clearly and confidently. 

Waste of + noun

Complete the sentences with these nouns:

talent               time                 effort

1. Our meeting achieved absolutely nothing. It was a complete waste of ___________ .
2. She graduated from university with a first-class degree in music, but has been unable to get a job. What a waste of ___________ !
3. We spent days decorating the spare room – then a water pipe burst and flooded it. All our work was ruined. What a waste of ___________ .

resources         human life                  money

4. Lots of people believe that the building of this statue is a scandalous waste of taxpayers’ ___________ .
5. There is growing opposition to the war and its senseless and tragic waste of __________ .
6. The report is critical of management and the department’s waste of ___________.

Answer Key: Key Word - A Waste of

Ex 1: l. time          2. talent      3. effort     4. money    5. human life    6.       resources

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