When we talk about the ‘impact’ of something, we mean the effect that something has.

Examples:

• If we stopped using fossil fuels today, would that have an impact on climate change?
• The lecturer warned the student that they would need to learn several formulas for the upcoming test, but that didn’t have any impact on the student; he still didn’t study.
• It was a terrible accident; the passengers died on impact.

Collocations: When you learn new vocab, make sure that you note collocations too. For this group of words some collocations are:
feature of
finality of
focus on
impact of, impact for, impact on
suffer an injury, multiple injuries, injurious to, injured by, injured in

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 word and the correct form of the word.

1. Technology has had a huge _______________ on the way people interact with another today.  (final, impact)
2. He sustained _______________ to his arms and shoulders when he fell from his bike. (injury, focus)
3. Business uses _______________ groups to give them information about how consumers view products.  (focus, injury)
4. A ______________ of studying at university is the social atmosphere.  (impact, feature)
5. Once I _______________ the sale of my house, I’m going on a long holiday. (feature, final)

Answers (in the wrong order below)
5. finalise   3. focus   2. injury / injuries    1. impact    4. feature