In the Reading section, you’ll often face "Vocabulary in Context" questions. These ask you to pick a synonym for a word as it's used in the passage.

You should be able to recognize the top 570 word families in the AWL instantly. 2. Context is King

Don’t use a "big" word if you aren’t 100% sure how to use it. Using a complex word incorrectly hurts your score more than using a simple word correctly.

To score high on the Speaking and Writing sections, you need "lexical resource" (variety). If you use the word important five times in one essay, your score will stall.

Practice reading articles from Scientific American or The Economist . When you hit a word you don’t know, try to guess its meaning based on the sentence before looking it up. 3. Move Beyond "Good" and "Bad"