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

Key Word: Plan

Verb + Plan

Use the correct form of these verbs:

1. It’s important that you all look ahead and ____________ plans for the future.
2. We had to____________ our holiday plans at the last minute, when my mother was taken into hospital.
3. The school was forced to____________ its plans for a new library due to a lack of financial support.
4. I’m afraid the picnic had to be cancelled. The bad weather ____________ all our plans.
5. The committee unanimously ____________the plan. Not one person opposed it. Everybody supported it.
6. Yesterday the government ____________ plans to create thousands of new jobs.
7. If I ____________ my plan to open a restaurant, can I count on your support? I’ll need good advice and some financial backing to____________ my plans off the ground.

Common Adjective Collocations

Use the following adjectives in these sentences:

1. Although____________ plans were drawn up for a new housing development, it didn’t get planning permission.
2. What a____________ plan! It’ll never work. Who on earth thought this one up?
3. Managers have drawn up a ____________ plan to keep the factory running if there is a power failure.
4. We looked at a number of different plans for a bridge over the river, but after much discussion we decided to stick with the ____________ plan of building a tunnel under it.
5. The interviewer asked me what my ____________ plans were. I could only tell him that they were dependent on getting this job!
6. The prisoners put together an ____________ plan to escape from prison using a helicopter.

Noun + Preposition + Plan

Complete the sentences with these nouns:

1. There’s been a _____________ of plan. We’re leaving next week instead of this week.
2. We expect to come up against a lot of _____________ to the plan. A number of people have voiced their objections to it already.
3. Remember that the_____________ or failure of the plan depends on you.
4. Everybody wants to know how the government is going to pay for its ambitious proposals, but the PM wouldn’t give away any_____________ of their plan.
5. The government pledged its support for the plan to build a new runway at Gatwick airport. However, none of the local residents are in _____________ of the plan.
6. The_____________ of this plan, what makes it so good, is that it won’t cost the members of the club a penny!

Notes:

1. In 1-3 ‘cancel’ and ‘drop’ are also possible.
2. In 1-4 ‘spoiled’ and ‘scuppered’ are also possible.

Note these ways of expressing opposition to a plan:

• We remain strongly opposed to these new plans.
• Parents are fiercely opposed to the plan to close the local primary school.
• I am totally opposed to the plan to legalise the use of cannabis for personal use.
• We are all fundamentally opposed to this plan to change the voting system.
• The workers are bitterly opposed to the plan to increase the length of the working day.

Note these expressions:

• There was an airline strike, so all our plans fell through at the last minute.
• I don’t have any plans for the weekend.
• Your best plan would be to take the train.
• If everything goes according to plan, we should arrive around midday.
• It soon became obvious that plan A wasn’t going to work, so we had to resort to plan B.

Answer Key

Exercise 1:

1. make
2. change
3. scrap
4. wrecked
5. approved
6. announced
7. go ahead with, get

Exercise 2:

1. detailed
2. crazy
3. contingency
4. original
5. future
6. audacious

Exercise 3:

1. change
2. opposition
3. success
4. details
5. favour
6. beauty

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