Using Collocation to Boost Your IELTS Score – Key Word: Account

Key word: Account

1          Verb + account

Use the correct form of these verbs:

accept              differ               corroborate

provide            keep                 listen to

1. The priest ____________ the old woman’s account of the death of her child with compassion.
2. I’m going to ____________ a detailed account of my travels in India. I’m going to write a book when I get back.
3. The diaries ____________ a full account of the writer’s experiences in prison.
4. Do you think we should ____________ his account of events? Can we really trust him?
5. The police only believed me after an eye-witness ____________ my account of the accident.
6. There were a number of accounts of the assassination of President Kennedy which ____________ considerably from the official version of events.

Go back and underline all the verb + account collocations.

2          Common adjective collocations

Use the following adjective collocations in these sentences:

blow-by-blow account                   clear account

conflicting accounts                        fascinating account

full account                                         graphic account

1. I didn’t know who to believe. The two witnesses gave ____________ of the incident.
2. We only wanted a brief account of the incident, but he insisted on giving us a ____________ of everything that had happened.
3. Our new director gave a very ____________ of his plans for the future of the company. They were well-expressed and easy to understand.
4. Her new biography gives a ____________ of her travels in the jungles of Africa. => Yes. It’s very interesting. There’s a scary account of how she was almost killed by a tiger.
5. The refugee gave such a ____________ of his torture that I thought I was going to be sick. How can human beings do such terrible things?
6. The Prime Minister is expected to give a ____________ of his meeting with the President to Parliament this morning.

3          Adjective + account      

Use the following adjectives in these sentences:

eye-witness                 faithful                       hair-raising

humorous                   sketchy                       moving

1. I think last night’s programme was just what we needed. It was a ____________ account of the events leading up to the plane crash.
2. According to an ____________ account, the robbers escaped in a blue car.
3. She gave a ____________ account of her escape from a pack of wild dogs in the Australian outback.
4. The speaker gave us a ____________ account of life at university. He had us all in fits of laughter.
5. We only have a ____________ account of the accident at the moment. We can’t say if anybody has died.
6. The book provides a ____________ account of the suffering of ordinary people in war-torn Eritrea.

ANSWER  KEY

Exercise 1:

1. listened to    2. keep       3. provide      4. accept          5. corroborated            6. differ

Exercise 2:

1 conflicting accounts             2. blow-by-blow account

3 clear account                        4. fascinating account

5 graphic account                    6. full account

Exercise  3:

1. faithful       2. eye-witness      3. hair-raising     4. humorous    5. sketchy     6. moving

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