This is the IELTS Energy Podcast episode 1485, vocabulary that lifts a weight off your shoulders.
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There are many places on the IELTS exam where you might need to answer a question about stress and relaxation.
Today, get three vocabulary terms that will elevate your score immediately.
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Hey Lindsay, how are you?
Hey Aubrey. I'm doing great.
Glad to be over here in Alice Energy.
Thanks for having me.
We have amazing vocabulary today.
And some Band 9 sample answers.
Lindsay, what has happened lately that lifted a weight off your shoulders?
Oh, well, one thing is today is Friday.
That kind of lifts a little bit of a weight off my shoulders.
Friday does lift a weight, right?
The weekend is here.
The weekend is here.
But a better example, I recently organized Monday .com a little bit better.
I was getting a little out of control, you know, if you don't keep up to date with Monday .com, you have pages of overdue things, which really evoked a lot of stress from this.
This is like a past commandingment system.
And that can happen where you have all of these past due.
And then it's just more stressful, right?
Yeah, so it was really so it was once I got that organized, And it was a big weight off my shoulders.
Yes. This is really, is this a great idiom for something, a weight to be lifted off your shoulders.
We're going to dive into what this means and some examples, but the vocabulary you're learning today is so flexible on everywhere on the speaking exam.
So many questions you're asked, you're going to be able to fit in today's episode.
We were asked in our community about this idiom, a weight lifted off my shoulders.
And they were asking, can it be shortened to just a weight -lifted?
Does it still mean the same thing?
So let's talk about that first and then dive into where you can use this on IELTS.
Yeah, I'm glad that our listeners or our students are asking such specific questions, right?
Really important to really fully understand these expressions.
And this is a lot of idioms we do this, like the grass is greener on the other side of the event.
We just shorten it and say grass is greener.
This one is like that.
They mean the exact same whether you use the whole thing, a weight was lifted off my shoulders, or I felt a weight lifted, they mean the same thing, and we're just shortened it to have less words.
I love that. All right.
So where do we go from here, uppery?
Yeah, so let's give some examples of questions you could use this on, right, in part one, maybe you're asked, how do you deal with anxiety?
Or what do you do to relax?
Today's vocabulary will be perfect to be talking about ways to reduce stress.
Yeah, that's a part one question or a part two question you might see.
Describe a situation where you felt a great sense of relief after a stressful experience, describe an activity that has helped you relax for two questions.
Yeah, part two and you need a full two minutes to describe something.
So, these idioms, this is the vocabulary you're going to learn today, is going to help you provide more details, right?
You don't want to just share what was stressful, and how you relax, you can also share how that made you feel.
How that, you know, what effect it had and add today's vocabulary.
I love it. What about Part 3?
What would a question look like where we could use this vocab for Part 3?
I think you might be asked, do teenagers experience anxiety more today than in the past, or is there a stigma around therapy in your country?
Questions like this, you'll definitely be able to use today's vocab.
Yeah. All the types of questions are so different across part one, two, and three.
And that's such an important part of our preparation, right Aubrey?
Exactly, right? So we'll definitely talk to you about where you can use these.
The first one we're sharing is that, wait, lifted off ones shoulders, or we'll say, a wait off my shoulders or his shoulders, or just wait, lifted.
Yeah. So for example, when I got the job, I felt the wait lifted.
Yes. yeah, and that just means immediate anxiety release, a lot of the stress just went away that weight of stress that we imagine on our shoulders lifts off right?
Yeah, I might say when I pass I'll I'll feel a weight off my shoulders or I'll feel a weight lifted this means the stress of needing the scores you need on I'llts what's you get your scores you can envision that weight lifting off your shoulders, and I know a lot of our listeners will feel that when they get their targets score a hundred percent.
Absolutely. But if you are answering a part two question or even a part one and you need more ways to say this, you're still talking about how you felt when stress went away.
You need multiple ways to say this.
So another is just the verb relieved.
You could say, I was so stressed before my doctor appointment and then extremely relieved when I got the test results.
Yep relieved is a great one.
Great one. Ah, very clear.
Or I let out a big sigh of relief.
This one's a little more descriptive, right?
I pray exactly. Imagine yourself, you find out some kind of information and you have that physical response of like imagining the weight lifted off your shoulder and you have that sigh, we say this.
I let out a big sigh of relief when she forgave me.
You could also use this for the future say, I will let out a big sigh of relief.
When I pass the IELTS, right?
We can use this in the future as well.
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Okay, Aubrey, we are back.
So I think we're gonna do some questions.
Some sample answers, is that right?
Exactly, we are going to use today's vocabulary in a couple of part one answers.
Remember you could use this on part two, on part three, there are going to be so many.
Speaking answers on the exam, this vocabulary could also be useful on the writing test. If you're writing a general task one letter, you could definitely imagine you're asked to complain to an airline because of poor service.
You could definitely share what gave you anxiety, what stressed you out and used today's vocabulary.
Or tell them, I would feel a sense of relief.
I would be relieved if you could address this issue.
Yeah, I really love the idea of learning some essential vocabulary like this.
And thinking about all the places it could be used on IELTS, right?
We don't know what we're gonna get.
Yeah, you don't know what you're going to get.
And when you are creating an IELTS vocabulary notebook and you're studying this vocabulary, you need to know should I be trying to answer, speaking questions, should I be trying to include this in essays and a lot of vocabulary is versatile enough, flexible enough, that you'll be able to use it in both essays and speaking answers.
I love it. So shall we go ahead and dive right into the first speaking part one sample answer?
A Lindsey want to give me a question?
So here is your question, Aubrey.
Do you easily get stressed out?
Oh, in the past, I was a pretty happy, go lucky person, and I didn't.
I wasn't, I didn't feel a lot of anxiety.
Then I had children.
And now I have a whole long to do list. And often when I accomplish a task, I'll feel a weight lifted off my shoulders.
I'll just feel extremely relieved to be able to check off one thing that I had to do.
It's a huge difference from when I was a young carefree kid.
Yes, you really painted a picture there, right?
The truth is always, yes.
This is a good tactic, a good strategy to compare the past to now when you get a question like this, and especially if you aren't sure how to answer right away, share what this used to be, and then as you're talking, you sort of think about how is it for me now, because this is a common human trait.
Yeah, we don't always stop to ponder how have I changed.
How is this for me now.
We're a little more aware of what it was in the past, so you can kind of share that first, and then think about as you're talking and share what it is now.
Yeah, I love that. That is so smart, because that creates a framework, creates space for content to be filled in.
It's almost like you create a little template for yourself.
I'm going to talk about what it used how I used to be, and then I'll go into how I am now.
Right, it's amazing.
I love that. Keep in mind, if the examiner asks you this question, do you easily get stressed out?
This is clearly specifically about me now.
As long as I answer that question, I can then talk about the fast, the future, anything related at all, absolutely.
And then you're actually giving a chance to show the examiner that you can use these different tenses.
And in fact, you likely are going to get questions where you're going to have to talk about the past. But don't avoid that, right?
Don't feel like I have to stick to the present.
You can absolutely share what this was like for you in the past as well.
Yeah, I love that idea.
I love it. All right.
All right. Are you ready to answer a question, so I like to go outdoors.
It makes me feel so relieved.
What I do on the weekends, I like to drive up to the mountains, get in the car, and feel that altitude going up.
It's immediately a weight lifted off my shoulders as I climb the altitude into the mountains.
I like to go hiking, usually as soon as I get into the forest, I can let out a big sigh of relief and just relax.
There's something that nature does that just massages the brain.
I don't know what it is, but it's amazing.
Oh, amazing answer.
So good. I love that.
I want to highlight how you started your answer by using go -to, like my go -to way to relax.
This is kind of, you know, slang.
It's informal, instead of just saying my favorite or the ultimate to say my go -to way and this can be your go -to restaurant would be like your favorite, the restaurant you always choose.
Your go -to vocabulary, your go -to answer, it means the one you would choose above all else.
And that's really slang, that gives you variety of vocabulary the examiner is looking for.
Yeah, and perfect for part one, right?
I'll bring for speaking part one.
Yes, absolutely. And then you use all of this great vocabulary shared today, right?
And you may be thinking like, oh I feel like the verb relieved is more formal, for example, not necessarily, right?
All of this vocabulary fit really well in this part one.
A lot of vocabulary is more flexible than that.
We'll use it casually in a conversation and then it could also be used in Part 3 when we're talking about issues that affect society.
A lot of vocabulary works for both.
All right, I love it.
I like these sample speaking, you know, speaking sample answers here for listeners to learn from our use of the vocabulary.
So good. So absolutely in practice answering these yourselves, use this vocabulary to practice these questions and others where you could talk about whether you feel stressed out or how you relax.
I'm excited to share a recent poll, Lindsay.
We had some really interesting results that I wanna chat about for a second.
Yeah, this is fun. So this came from episode 1458 is conversational English enough for IELTS speaking.
And we asked you the question, do you speak English every day?
Aubrey Drumroll, what are the results?
These results are surprising.
Yes, was only 33%. No was 66%, so we wanna highlight something.
We talked about this recently.
on the podcast. That a lot of students will do a mock our speaking test with us and be really surprised at their low scores and then when we ask them, well, what are you doing to practice speaking?
And they'll say, well, I listen to a lot of English, right?
I read a lot of English, I watch TV in English and we really, and we find out that they're not speaking out loud every day in English.
This is really vital for your IELTS speaking score.
So those of you who marked, no, we challenge you a speaking English every day.
You don't have to have a speaking partner.
You can speak out loud to yourself, right Lindsay?
Yeah, you can what I like to do with that.
I have a hard time just kind of standing and speaking.
So what I like to do is narrate what I'm doing.
And I feel like I do that anyways, in my head anyways.
So it's normal. It's natural.
So going around the house, I'm going to make some coffee, right?
I'm making a coffee.
I'm gonna, I think I'll have, uh, oatmeal for breakfast. It's a dialogue.
We already have these dialogues.
right. So, just that it in English.
That's a great idea and you don't have to always practice answering aight speaking questions.
You can just speak aloud.
Another good thing to do is those podcasts you're listening to, everything you read, summarize them out loud after immediately.
And whether you're on a walk or just by yourself out loud, say a summary of what you just read or listen to.
Yeah, I mean, it's a very common conversation topic between native speakers to talk about a podcast they just listened to oh I was listening to a podcast and I you hear it a lot right so open up a conversation like that why not share it with someone ask what they think okay for sure and then come back and answer today's Spotify poll question does IELTS feel like a weight on your shoulders we know this is the case for a lot of students I have felt this way when studying for a high stakes exam we are so excited for you to get the off your shoulders.
Yes, so excited. Don't forget to hit follow right here on IELTS Energy and Aubrey, thanks for having me on today.
Yes, awesome. I'll see you next time.
All right, you take care, fight.
Thanks for listening to IELTS Energy.
Hit subscribe now, and don't forget to find your estimated band score at allearsenglish .com slash my score.
