IELTS Vocabulary for Academic Reading - Climate Change

hi there I'm miles Master Lee and welcome to this IELTS vocabulary for academic reading lesson today's theme is the effects of climate change this is a very useful lesson if you want to improve your vocabulary or if you want to improve your reading skills it's great for both so let's get started let's first talk about using IELTS reading tests for vocabulary study IELTS reading tests are excellent for vocabulary study and for improving your grammar nearly every paragraph has a lot of high-level words collocations set phrases synonyms antonyms examples of cohesive devices and more just by examining one paragraph you can learn lots of great language so don't let any reading tests go to waste get everything you can from them you can use your previous reading tests to improve your academic vocabulary tremendously reading tests are not just for testing yourself after you're finished with the test look back through it slowly and grab all of these great words and grammatical structures and set phrases and collocations and synonyms and cohesive devices and all of this great stuff that's in your IELTS reading test you can be sure that this vocabulary is useful for the IELTS because it's already on a sample test so in this lesson we're going to look at a paragraph from an IELTS sample test and analyze some of the great vocabulary from it I hope you're ready I sure AM let's go first we have this passage from can bridge IELTS 11 and I've included a link to this book in the description of this video I'm going to read it first such is our dependence on fossil fuels and such is the volume of carbon dioxide already released into the atmosphere that many experts agree that significant global warming is now inevitable they believe that the best we can do is keep it at a reasonable level and at present the only serious option for doing this is cutting back on our carbon emissions but while a few countries are making major strides in this regard the majority are having great difficulty even stemming the rate of increase let alone reversing it consequently an increasing number of scientists are beginning to explore the alternative of geoengineering a term which generally refers to the intentional large-scale manipulation of the environment according to its proponents geoengineering is the equivalent of a back-up generator if plan a reducing our dependency on fossil fuels fails we require a plan B employing grand schemes to slow down or reverse the process of global warming so before we continue with the vocabulary one thing you can do to practice your IELTS vocabulary and your IELTS speaking is to try and copy my reading of this test paragraph so listen to my reading of this test paragraph and then try to copy my voice including where I stopped my intonation how I pronounce different words if you record yourself then you can listen to your voice and my voice and compare the difference between the two this is a great way to practice okay next let's look at some of the vocabulary in this paragraph so vocabulary highlights words and expressions first is dependence such as our dependence on fossil fuels we depend we require fossil fuels to live if we don't have fossil fuels we can't live well this is dependence next volume now the scientific meaning of volume isn't important here we just need to understand that volume is related to the amount of carbon dioxide okay so volume here is related to the amount of carbon dioxide and that's what's important here next number three inevitable something that's inevitable is something that's definitely going to happen it's there's no chance that it won't happen there's a 100% chance that it will happen so it's inevitable it says here many experts agree that significant global warming is now inevitable it will definitely happen they believe that the best we can do is keep it at a reasonable level the best we can do now this isn't a difficult phrase the best we can do but I highlighted it because it's a nice set of words that go together well the best we can do the best I can do the best he or she can do so something worth remembering next cutting back cutting back means to reduce so cutting back on carbon emissions means to reduce carbon emissions next we have carbon emissions you don't need to understand what carbon is in science but you do need to understand that carbon emissions are not good for global warming and so emission here or emission is something you produce and put out like a smoke you can emit smoke from a building you can emit carbon because you're creating something so carbon emissions are not good for global warming next we have making major strides number seven making major strides this means making a lot of progress making major strides when you stride you're taking a really big step and major strides is a nice collocation making major strides means taking big steps or making progress okay number eight stemming stemming means stopping a little bit or slowing down here we have great difficulty even stemming the rate of increase even slowing down even reducing the rate of increase and after this we have let alone now this one is a little bit difficult all right so let's read the sentence before we get into the meaning but while a few countries are making major strides in this regard the majority are having great difficulty even stemming the rate of increase let alone reversing it so after you use the phrase let alone you need to have a less likely a less possible result so here a is stemming or reducing the rate of increase and the lower chance result or the result that's less possible is reversing it so after let alone we have the lower chance result let me give you another example it's very difficult that children like eating vegetables let alone loving them so we have like eating vegetables there's not a high chance that children like eating vegetables but there's an even lower chance that children love eating vegetables and that's how we use let alone there's a low chance that children like eating vegetables let alone love them okay that's let alone number nine number ten is intentional this means on purpose something you intend to do something you try to do and manipulation is to change by trying to change something so to usually manipulate is to change with your hands but here we're manipulating manipulating the environment we're changing the environment next according to its proponents this is another phrase that I highlighted because I think it's a useful phrase for you to know according to its proponents proponents are people who support something so according to the people who support it according to its proponents is number 12 number 13 equivalent something that is equal to and number 14 is a backup generator so in some houses they have backup generators if the electricity goes out at your house then you can turn on the backup generator to create more electricity even if you don't have the main electricity from the city or from the power company a backup generator and then we have dependency down here which is the same as dependence number one reducing our dependency such as our dependence and then number fifteen employing grand schemes employing here is not for people who work it's it means using or implementing and then a grand scheme is a big plan Wow lots of words in this one paragraph just one paragraph and we had so many really really useful high-level phrases collocations expressions and words great stuff before we continue let's review these words and expressions real quickly number one is dependence number two volume number three inevitable number four the best that we can do number five cutting back number six carbon emissions number seven make major strides eight stemming nine let alone ten intentional eleven manipulation twelve according to its proponents thirteen equivalent fourteen backup generator and fifteen employ grand schemes the reason that I repeat these words is because reading the words once is not enough you need to look at them multiple times try to use the words pronounced the words really make them your friends get to know these words alright so that you at least can understand them in the reading at best you can use them in your speech or even your writing because these are great words very useful before we finish up we have a few more vocabulary highlights first is such is our dependence and such is the volume of carbon dioxide this is also quite a difficult phrase and not too common this is a little bit rare this such is and we have such is this is the common part such is refers to something that has already happened that we can't really change and it's usually not too positive so here we have such is our dependence on fossil fuels our fossil fuels and our dependence on fossil fuels is already set it's not something that we can change it happened in the past and we can't really change it right now but we're looking at the current state of it and then the same thing such is the volume of carbon dioxide we have the current amount of carbon dioxide that's a result of things that happened in the past and we can't really change those so we have such as our dependence on fossil fuels and such is the volume of carbon dioxide already released into the atmosphere that many experts agree that significant global warming is now inevitable if I make this sentence easier I could say we are very dependent on fossil fuels and we already have released a lot of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere because of this many experts agree that we will definitely have significant global warming okay so that's such is such as you don't need to use this in your speech you don't need to use this in your writing but if you see it in your reading try to remember what it means it talks about a current state and something we can't really change because it's already happened next for to I have some examples of referencing that they use in this paragraph this helps with the cohesion of the paragraph it makes it easier to read so first we have they and they goes back to experts in the previous sentence then we have this at present the only serious option for doing this this is keep it at a reasonable level before the comma next we have in this regard in this regard but while a few countries are making major strides in this regard and here it's so cutting back on our carbon emissions or keeping them at a reasonable level next we have the majority the majority of what well the majority of countries the majority of countries this is from the beginning of the sentence and then the last one that I have highlighted here according to its proponents according to its proponents who are its what is its it is the people who like geo-engineering so it says geo-engineering and its proponents are the people who support geoengineering all right just some other highlights for you to look at before we finish up so suggestions for how to use reading test vocabulary for practice first one thing you can do is put the words and phrases that you don't know onto flashcards just a basic paper or card you can use an index card and on one side write the sentence without the word or phrase and on the other side write the word or phrase and you can test yourself with one side and the other also after reading the paragraph several times try to rewrite the paragraph by only looking at the vocabulary words or phrases you have selected so first you'll write down a bunch of vocabulary words that are new and interesting for you and then read the paragraph several times after you're ready try to rewrite the paragraph only looking at the vocabulary words and phrases and then finally you can compare your version with the original to see what is different if there are mistakes or if you basically got the same idea it's a great way to remember this vocabulary and finally you can look up more example sentences using a dictionary or search engine like Google and after that you can write your own example sentences also a great final step okay fantastic I hope you enjoyed this video thank you so much for watching it for more IELTS practice information strategies and techniques please subscribe to our You Tube channel you can find us at youtube.com slash IELTS mass or IELTS - master comm just click the button on there to subscribe and tell me what would you like to see next let me know in the comments have a fantastic day

Channel: IELTS Master

Views: 106,088

Keywords: IELTS Vocabulary, IELTS Academic Reading, IELTS Band 7, IELTS Master

Id: ZyTErJL1yQc

Length: 15min 40sec (940 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 26 2017