The Academic Word List comprises the 570 most frequently used words in academic sources such as books, university texts and articles.

When you learn new vocab, make sure that you note collocations too. For this group of words some collocations are:
has potential, potential for, potentially dangerous, previous experience, primary reason, primarily used for, range of

Check the meanings of the words if you don’t already know them. Check the meanings of the various forms as sometimes they are different. You can check them at Time4english by clicking the words (http://www.time4english.com/aamain/lounge/awl.asp).

Complete the sentences below with the correct form of the word.

IELTS Vocabulary (21)

1. Those chemicals are ______________ dangerous and should be handled with great care.(potential)
2. Her _______________ job was with an advertising company. (previous)
3. A _______________ reason for climate change is the use of fossil fuels. (primary)
4. What did you ________________? (purchase)
5. Have you seen the new _______________ of IELTS materials available? (range)

Answers (in the wrong order below)
5. range   3. primary   2. previous    1. potentially    4. purchase