This is an IELTS Energy Podcast, Episode 1530, Band 9 IELTS Vocabulary for Exploring the Outdoors.
Welcome to the ielts energy podcast from all ears english downloaded more than 35 million times with examiner trained ielts wiz, aubrey carter and lindsay mcmahon, the english adventurer.
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You could get a question about the outdoors on Speaking Parts 1, 2, or 3.
Today get six outstanding and high-scoring vocabulary words to cover this topic for a Band 7 or higher.
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Hey there, Aubrey.
How's it going today?
I'm great, Lindsay.
How are you?
Good.
Aubrey, what is your favorite thing to do outdoors?
I feel like you're pretty outdoorsy.
Would you say so?
I am pretty outdoorsy.
I think my favorite thing to do is float the river.
The Salt River goes through the canyons here in Arizona.
And even when it's really hot out, it's a lot cooler on the river.
And then you can just jump in the water.
It's always so cold.
So we take paddle boards and do that.
And it's really fun.
What about you, Lindsay?
What's your favorite outdoor activity?
Oh, probably just good old fashioned hiking.
Because when I go into the woods, maybe I'm stressed out or something.
And then I come out and then it's like everything's been reordered in my mind.
It's a reset.
Yeah.
Yes.
It's a reset.
So it's just so healthy.
Yeah.
You guys could get this exact answer on speaking part one.
What is your favorite outdoor activity?
There are a lot of questions on the speaking exam that could require you to talk about spending time in the outdoors.
And so we're going to give you some band nine vocabulary today that you could use on these questions.
And then you'll also get some sample answers.
So stay to the end of the episode for those.
Excellent.
Looking forward to it.
Yeah, I live in a place where outdoor lifestyle is a huge deal.
And I think you do too.
Arizona is probably somewhat similar, right?
I mean people move to the Mountain West because they want to be outdoors and they're proud of their lifestyle.
They talk about gear all the time here in Denver.
I don't know.
I know Colorado even bigger than Arizona, but Arizona, to a lot of people here, love hiking and spending time outdoors.
So absolutely.
So for our listeners, guys, if you live in a similar place, bring in your real life experience.
The question is about you.
So it'll be such a better answer if you bring in your real examples and experiences.
Exactly.
Yeah.
If you don't love hiking paddleboarding, whatever it is some people would do outdoors, but you love taking a walk in a park.
That question is just what's your favorite outdoor activity that absolutely would count.
But you need to think about this ahead of time.
If it sort of stumps you like, oh, I don't like hiking.
What else is there?
Right.
These are questions you need to have thought about.
How would I answer?
Or even city walking.
I mean, city walking technically is outdoors, right?
Absolutely.
That would count.
And you could even start that answer in a kind of a funny way, like maybe some people wouldn't consider this outdoorsy, but I like to just walk around the city.
It's immediately getting you vocabulary points.
Pronunciation points, it's a good solid start.
So should we go through the vocab, Aubrey?
Yeah, well, let's first share, we recently did a poll that I was really interested in the answer.
So thank you everyone who answered our Spotify poll.
If you listen in Spotify, you can answer these poll questions that we have every week.
And this one was, which IELTS exam are you preparing for, general training or academic?
And 57% of our listeners that answered the poll are studying for the general training exam.
42% academic.
Interesting.
That's actually flipped from what we know about our audience.
So this is interesting.
Yeah, it could be that it's flipped and more of you are studying for general training, or just those of you who came and answered the poll.
So you got to come and answer the poll so we can get a good feel for our entire audience.
Yes, make your voice heard.
And while you're at it, hit the follow button right here in IELTS Energy.
We publish twice a week and you definitely don't want to miss it.
It's a great starting point for IELTS preparation.
Absolutely.
All right, let's dive into this vocab.
So first we have this very informal phrase, rough it or roughing it.
This means to live without the usual comforts of a comfortable bed, electricity maybe, especially if you're camping or traveling.
We'll say I'm roughing it.
Yeah, you hear this a lot.
For example, we had to rough it since our cabin had no electricity.
Yeah.
You know yeah, you might say like if you cut corners with.
Oh, I know, when we camp we cut corners with cleaning dishes a little bit.
Like we don't do the best job and we'll just be like, oh, we're roughing it.
Throw it in the bin.
When we're roughing it, I'm not going to scrub these dishes.
And if you don't love to rough it, share that.
If you're asked about this, you could say, I hate roughing it.
So if I'm camping...
I'm glamping.
I'm going to be in a nice cabin with electricity, right?
You can share that as well.
If I'm camping, I'm glamping.
It's a good quote.
It's a good one.
Avery, what's the next one?
All right.
The second is a phrasal verb, make do.
This means to manage with limited resources, even if it's not ideal.
So often like, for example, on a backpacking trip, you might say we were only able to pack in so much.
So we had to make do with very simple meals, right?
You're not going to be cooking these gourmet meals when you have to backpack in everything you make.
Yeah.
And it's amazing how creative we can get sometimes when we have to make do with less, less stuff.
You know, absolutely.
Yeah.
So this is interesting.
Both of these rough it and make do.
I rarely hear students use.
So, even though this sounds like pretty informal common vocabulary because students don't use it a lot on IELTS, it's actually band nine vocabulary.
Yeah, that's the thing.
Don't forget that what you're really doing is you're kind of competing against other students in terms of vocabulary.
So you want to make sure you're just using not the usual student vocabulary like raining cats and dogs.
Very common.
Throw it out the window.
Don't use it.
Exactly.
So you might think, oh, it's an idiom.
So it's high, but a lot of students are using it.
So we really try to focus on this podcast of things that native English speakers are saying that you might not see in a textbook or an IELTS class that you should be using on the IELTS speaking exam.
100%.
So be writing these down, listeners.
Sleeping under the stars.
Yeah.
Sleeping outdoors without a roof.
Usually when we're camping, we couldn't figure out how to set up our tent.
So we just had to sleep under the stars.
Do you ever do that when you camp, Aubrey?
Just like not sleep in a tent, just sleep outside?
Yeah, sometimes.
We used to do this a lot when I was a kid.
We would sleep on our trampoline in the back of the backyard.
So we'd just sleep under the stars on the trampoline.
And then you'd wake up in the middle of the night and everyone had like slid down to the middle of the trampoline.
Well, I'd be worried in Arizona when you could have scorpions crawling on you or something.
Maybe not on the trampoline, but if you're on the ground, I don't know.
Yeah, I haven't done that in Arizona.
That was in Idaho.
No scorpions.
But yeah, for the most part, there's a lot of pest control here.
So people are spraying and like really trying to keep like scorpions down.
But I still don't know if I'd sleep on the ground in Arizona.
Probably not.
All right.
What's number four?
Number four is off the beaten path.
This means away from touristy, popular areas, remote areas.
So, for example, we discovered a quiet waterfall off the beaten path when we took a trail not many people know about.
So if you do like to find out of the way places, this would be a great phrase for describing that.
Yep.
And again, it's common to hear this from a native speaker, but it's probably not necessarily common in the IELTS exam to hear it from other students.
So it would boost your score higher.
Exactly.
And then we wanted to share a couple of band nine verbs here.
The first one is trudge, which is to walk with effort, especially on rough ground or when tired.
So I'm imagining someone trudging through mud or snow.
It sort of means walking with difficulty.
Love that trudging.
It's very physically hard.
You just imagine like lumbering through the snow kind of.
Exactly.
You might say after hours in the snow.
We had to trudge back to the cabin with heavy boots and frozen fingers.
So anytime you had difficulty walking this verb, instead of just saying it was hard to walk, right?
You want to use a verb like this.
That's more specific and higher scoring.
We had to trudge back.
Don't miss the opportunity, right?
Um, and then meander is another way of walking to wander slowly and without a set plan.
I also kind of feel like it's not usually a straight line when I think of meander.
It's kind of like, Oh, go this way.
A little go that way.
Do you agree?
Yeah, exactly.
Yes.
And this is perfect.
If you are talking about just city walking, you might not.
Unless there's a ton of snow, you might be trudging through the snow, and But if it's just like regular walking in a park, walking a street, you could say I was just meandering, checking out all of the different shops and walking through the parks.
Yeah, meandering through the West Village, for example.
Sure, that could work for a neighborhood as well.
Love that.
Yeah, or maybe if you go to a botanical garden.
We spent the afternoon meandering through the botanical garden.
Just kind of means no real destination.
You're sort of walking just to see what you see along the way.
Yeah, another winning vocabulary word.
I love it.
Yes.
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Okay, Aubrey, it's time for some sample answers.
Shall we go for it?
Would you like to go first?
Sure.
Ask me one of them.
I'm going to try to use some of this vocab we've taught you guys today.
And, of course, we want you to answer these yourselves with your own details.
But we'll give you some examples of how these answers could go using this winning vocabulary.
Okay.
And just to give us a little context, are we in speaking part one, speaking part two, part three?
Yes.
These are all speaking part one.
So they're personal questions about daily activities, which is more likely where you're going to be asked about spending time in the outdoors.
But these kinds of questions or this vocabulary could definitely be used all over the speaking exam.
If you're asked on part two, describe a recent trip you took outdoor you know, or describe time you spent outdoors recently.
And part three could also ask about if people should spend more time outdoors or if public spaces like parks should be funded things like that.
Yeah.
The topic could still come up.
It's just a matter of the way the question is structured and the way you need to answer it is going to be different, right?
Exactly.
Okay.
And how long are we looking for for these?
Speaking part one answers three or four sentences, something like that.
Exactly.
Three to five sentences is perfect for a part one answer.
They're much shorter.
You definitely don't want to just say yes or no, or answer with a couple of words.
You need to give a little more detail.
So aim for three to five sentences.
Okay.
Here we go, Aubrey.
Did you like to go outdoors when you were younger?
I have always loved spending time outdoors.
Campouts with my family were my favorite thing to do.
We would bring sleeping bags and sometimes just sleep under the stars if the weather was nice.
But often it ended up dumping rain on us in Idaho, so we rarely were able to do that.
We would often be trudging through the mud as we packed up all of our muddy, dirty gear.
Wow.
I could definitely you're building a picture in my head.
Right.
And for the examiner.
Love it.
I heard campouts.
Good, good, useful word.
I heard sleep under the stars.
I like that one.
And then dumping rain.
So you had a choice here.
You could have said it often rained band.
What?
Five, six, seven.
Instead, dumping rain.
It was often dumping rain, so much more descriptive in terms of vocab.
And higher scoring, right?
It's less common to say pouring or dumping rain.
And, like you mentioned Lindsay, an idiom like raining cats and dogs is used so often by students that you want to opt for something else instead.
Oh, 100%.
And then you also said trudging through.
As a result of all the rain, we were often trudging through.
I'm not sure if you said the campsite.
Through the mud.
Yeah, trudging through the mud.
Did it really rain that much in Idaho in the summertime?
Yeah.
In the mountains, it often would.
I remember one camp out, we went to sleep in the camping trailer and we woke up home.
My dad had like hitched the trailer and like pulled it home with us all asleep.
You just abandoned camp.
Just abandoned camp.
Yeah, Which is funny because it's illegal now.
I don't think it was at the time.
It wasn't as regulated, but it's now illegal to have people just like in a camping trailer that you tow with a hitch.
Everything's changed since the 70s and 80s.
Back in the 70s, you could get away with it.
I love it.
I love it.
So good.
All right.
Shall we go for another one?
Yeah.
Do you want to ask me another one?
Oh, sure.
Yeah.
Okay.
Here we go.
So the question is, do you still go outdoors a lot now?
Yeah, I love being outside.
Unfortunately, in Arizona, it's often, you know, we have blistering heat here.
So I go out really early if I'm going to play sand volleyball or pickleball or in the evening.
Not long ago, when there was a full moon, we went and floated the river at night.
It was kind of creepy because it was pitch dark, but it was at least cool enough to be outside.
Sometimes you have to make do in Arizona.
It's too hot to be out in the heat of the day.
Hmm.
Love it.
Good use of a couple of key vocabulary words.
I even responded even though the examiner wouldn't respond.
But sometimes it's hard not to and we're not used to giving no reaction.
I know.
It's true.
It's strange to not react, right?
It's a weird thing.
So you said blistering heat.
So that's better than just saying it's very hot.
It's typically very hot.
You're making choices here that ultimately are going to affect your score in a positive way.
All right.
Good.
Full moon.
Like that one.
Pitch dark, not just dark, not just very dark, but pitch dark, which to me means extreme.
Like you can see nothing.
Yes, exactly.
Which it was funny.
It was supposed to be a full moon.
I should have said this in my answer, but it ended up being pitch dark because the moon didn't come out until like an hour after we got home.
Like, where's the moon?
It was supposed to be.
It was so dark.
Nice.
I love that.
And then make do you also used so nice use of these words.
Yeah.
And this was it's interesting.
You can use make do when you're talking about roughing it.
Right.
When you don't have all of the conveniences of being at home.
And then this way also works.
Right.
We have to make do.
We're talking about the weather.
Right.
If you have plans and then it rains, you have to make do by staying inside.
Right.
We also use that to talk about being flexible with our plans.
Love it.
Love it.
So good.
All right.
All right.
Lindsay, are you ready for your first question?
Let's do it.
Okay.
All right.
Do you like reading outside?
Oh, interesting question.
I absolutely do like reading outside.
And I remember when I lived in New York City I used to take my New York Times the actual physical paper, believe it or not and go to the park, go to Central Park, because I lived just a few blocks away and I felt lucky and wanted to take full advantage.
But I would like.
I like to get off the beaten path within Central Park because it's important not to be.
I don't know.
It can be touristy and I wanted to stay away from that.
So I would trudge way uptown, kind of near the reservoir and find a bench in a less trodden place.
I would meander through the walkways in Central Park and finally find my bench, sit down and enjoy the paper.
Nice.
OK, I love this.
I loved how because we'll often give this strategy of telling a story.
It's especially vital in part two when you have to fill two minutes.
But don't hesitate to tell a story in these part one answers as well.
Right.
Right away, you dove in with a great story.
I remember when you're sharing how you would buy the paper in New York, and that's when the main time you read outside.
So tell that story.
Right.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And I love this verb trodden, the past participle, say people hadn't trodden.
They're like amazing.
I think I said less trodden paths or something like that.
Less trodden paths.
Yes.
Yeah.
Taking a chance there, but it's good.
It's good.
All right.
One more.
Let's ask you another one here, Lindsay.
Ready?
I'm ready.
Where do people in your country like to go outside?
That's a great question.
I mean usually what I hear about and what I really appreciate in the United States is our national parks, because when I think about how Americans on a broad scale the mass, just general people with families can be outside, I think about national parks.
National parks are super accessible.
Some people love the ones in Wyoming or Montana, Yellowstone, Yosemite in California.
Some people like to sleep under the stars and actually make it a camping event.
Some people like to go into the very high alpine trails and make do with very little through like a long-term backpacking trip.
But I think the point is just getting outside with your family and maybe roughing.
It is incredibly valuable.
Nice.
Amazing.
Yes.
I loved roughing it there at the end, right?
Getting outside and roughing it.
One thing that I was thinking of during your answer that I want to point out to students here.
This is a pro tip.
If you are asked something about your own country, it might lend toward you stating many things in your first language.
Like if you had national parks and you were to list them as Lindsay did.
She's listing these parks.
And so one thing you want to get away from is...
If you say one like say you say the equivalent of Yosemite wherever you live, then you'd want to say something in English describing that.
Like, oh, that's a park in California, or you'd want to describe it.
And then you could say another one.
And that's fine to say it in your first language, because there aren't always translations into English for all of these right.
Or you might know it, no problem.
But you then want to describe where it is, why people go say something about it in English.
That's a really good point, Aubrey.
So we're making sure there's lots of English around your native language.
Exactly.
Yes.
Yeah.
Great answer though.
Great job using this vocab.
I'm excited for you guys to be ready when you get asked about the outdoors, spending time in the outdoors.
Practice answering your own questions with this vocabulary.
I think our listeners are absolutely going to be ready.
And guys to take that next step beyond the podcast to be in a more organized study system with actual support, where you get your questions answered.
That is in Three Keys IELTS, our course.
Aubrey, where can our listeners get into Three Keys IELTS?
Yes, go to allearsenglish.com slash keys, K-E-Y-S, for our full system of strategies.
And we'll see you there.
All right, Aubrey, have a good day.
You too.
Thanks, Lindsay.
Bye.
Thanks for listening to IELTS Energy.
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