Strategies to acquire new vocabulary for DET scores

There are many English proficiency tests in the market for studying abroad or immigration. To name a few, we have IELTS Academic, PTE Academic, TOEFL, and Duolingo English Test. Regardless of the test that students want to prepare for, vocabulary plays a truly vital role in aiming for a high score. 

Some of the major benefits of having a huge and diverse vocabulary bank are as follows:

• Students are able to express themselves smoothly and logically even when they face difficult questions;
• Students are able to use vocabulary flexibly and naturally to demonstrate their thoughts and ideas;

But, the question is, how do we widen our vocabulary bank effectively? When we say “effectively”, it means we learn, remember and are able to use new vocabulary in our Writing or Speaking.

In order to widen our vocabulary bank, we need to acquire new vocabulary on a regular basis. And there are two obvious methods to help students acquire new vocabulary every single day.

Listening

This is the question that we ask all our students: “How does a baby learn to speak?”. Could you please think of the answer for a second and share it with us in the comment section.

There is only one way to do it by imitating his or her parents through listening to the same word day in and day out. The very first words that a baby can speak are “papa” and “mama” (or other words that mean parents in your mother tongue). In this case, a baby learns the words “papa” and “mama” by simply coping with his or her parents unconsciously, which is the most natural way to acquire new vocabulary. 

Yes, we recommend students learn and acquire new vocabulary by utilising the same method that a baby does because it’s (almost) effortless and very effective. The good thing is, if you are reading this article and understanding over 50%, then you are already very good, which is a great foundation to acquire new vocabulary through our five simple steps to immerse yourself in the Listening environment. 

The following five-step strategy provides students with a detailed guide on how to improve their Listening skills, and yes, widen their vocabulary bank through everyday listening. 

• Step 1: Choose suitable content
• Step 2: Shadowing technique and Notes taking
• Step 3: Review all words
• Step 4: Summarize what we hear
• Step 5: Listen again and again

Explore the unique strategy to help you advance your Listening skills here. Before you do that, please bear in mind that it will be challenging and take lots of time at the beginning. However, this skill can be improved over time as long as you keep practising on a regular basis. 

Reading

We either acquire new vocabulary through Listening or Reading which we call the input, while Writing and Speaking are the output. Reading is genuinely essential in helping students learn to articulate themselves better and reinforce the knowledge that we learn from Listening, or vice versa. 

Learning new vocabulary is much more of gaining similarity with new words and phrases. The more we see the word, the longer we remember it, the faster we can recall it from our subconscious mind in order to speak or write.

As we are aiming to take the English proficiency test, specifically the PTE Academic, Reading just becomes irreplaceable in everyday practice. We read not only to widen our vocabulary bank but also to learn how an article is organised and delivered, so we can apply it to our training and get higher scores on a daily basis via the PTE Practice Platform. 

Here is a five-step strategy that provides students with a detailed guide to improve their Reading skills, and of course, acquire new vocabulary for future use and testing purposes.

• Step 1: Skim through to find suitable content
• Step 2: Take notes while reading
• Step 3: Review all keywords
• Step 4: Summarize what we read
• Step 5: Read, Read, and Read

Live-interactive PTE Practice Platform

Acquiring new vocabulary every day widens students' lexical bank to help them deal with all question types more easily. But it’s not enough to achieve the PTE Academic desired scores without support from a Live-interactive PTE Practice Platform, on which students practice PTE questions on a regular basis and apply new vocabulary to get higher scores. 

Let’s experience your most efficient PTE Practice Website including instantly detailed feedback to help you learn from your mistakes and obtain higher scores. The PTE Practice Platform offers you the following benefits:

• Thousands of practice questions similar to the real test questions;
• Instantly detailed feedback for all question types;
• Same grading elements as Pearson uses to evaluate your answers;
• 2-hour mock tests with estimated scores;
• Integrated dictionary;
• And lots of other supportive features.

Watch this video sample feedback to understand your instant feedback for Speaking and Writing questions. To get the best experience, visit our PTE Practice Platform, create your FREE account and start practising.