15 Phrasal verbs to impress your IELTS examiner

Today I’ve got 15 phrasal verbs, that will impress your IELTS examiner.

And if you're thinking, “Whoa! Great Keith, what are phrasal verbs?”

then you really need to watch this.

Hello again! This is Keith from the “Keith Speaking Academy”,

here to help you speak better English,

give better answers and get a higher score on IELTS speaking.

Now today, I’m going to show you what phrasal verbs are,

how exciting they can be

and also why they are important in IELTS speaking.

And actually in any natural conversation in English, right?

Also, I will share with you 15 of my favorite phrasal verbs,

ones that I think if you use,

well, let me put it like this.

I think your examiner will go,

“Ooh! Interesting.” Tick.

Let's hope so.

Before we begin, let me say a word about learning phrasal verbs, right.

How to learn them.

As with most things in English, like idioms, phrasal verbs,

you need to study them,

you need to repeat them

but you also need to practice using them in conversations, right?

In different kinds of conversations.

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Let's get into phrasal verbs.

Okay.

So first of all, what are phrasal verbs?

Now if you've heard of phrasal verbs before,

you may have a love-hate relationship with them.

Some people love them, some people hate them.

I love them.

Of course I do, right.

So a phrasal verb basically is a verb plus a preposition,

right?

Prepositions like in, on, under, out, to, away.

Prepositions often indicate place or direction, right?

So if we say walk out,

it's showing you walk out of the room.

Walk in, walk away, right?

Sit down, sit up, speak up, louder speak up, right?

Increase the volume.

So very often you can see the meaning from the words, right?

The verb and the preposition.

A quick note,

if you're a more advanced student or a teacher,

you may also hear of the the idea a phrasal verb is a verb plus an adverb particle.

Now the adverb particle is the same, right?

It's in, on, under, out, away et cetera.

But sometimes we call it an adverb particle

because it's how you do the verb, right?

You walk out is how you walk.

It doesn't matter too much at this moment.

Let's keep it simple, right.

It's a verb plus a preposition.

That's the basic package, right?

Okay. If you're a teacher, right, a quick tip for teachers.

You shouldn't tell students everything you know

about a language point.

You should tell students what they need to know now, right?

Keep it simple.

Tell them just enough to understand.

Great!

Keep on doing a great job teachers.

Now, phrasal verbs are challenging? No.

Phrasal verbs are fun because they are often idiomatic,

that means the meaning of the phrasal verb is different

from the individual words, right?

Before when we said speak up,

it's a little bit idiomatic, right?

Speak up is not speaking up.

It's just to speak more loudly.

Speak up.

Speak down is much more idiomatic, right?

Speak down is not Hello! Hello! Hello!

No.

Speak down is to talk to somebody

like they are less intelligent a bit stupid, immature, like a child, right?

That's when you speak down to somebody.

So it has this idiomatic meaning.

Lots of phrasal verbs have idiomatic meanings, which is great.

The possibilities are really fun and exciting.

Now you might be thinking,

“Okay, Keith, does that mean I can only use phrasal verbs in speaking?”

not at all.

You can use phrasal verbs in writing as well.

Some of them.

Okay. So how do I know whether I use them in writing or in speaking?

Simple answer, is you look at the context.

If you've heard a phrasal verb by listening to it,

then you know it can be spoken.

If you've learned a phrasal verb by reading it,

you know it can be written as simple as that.

Keep it simple.

Right. Let's begin with my first batch of phrasal verbs.

A batch?

Okay.

A batch is a group, right?

But it sounds like I’m a factory, manufacturing phrasal verbs.

Let's look at my first batch of phrasal verbs to impress your IELTS examiner.

Now often in IELTS speaking, we have to talk about work or study, right?

Now a nice little phrasal verb here is “to knuckle down”.

To knuckle down.

Hard to pronounce, I know.

No.

Fun to pronounce knuckle, ckle.

It's the dark L. Knuckle.

To knuckle down.

And your knuckles are these, right?

Here.

So when you knuckle down, is when you put your knuckles on the table

like, you're really ready to work

and it means to start focusing on your work or your study, right?

For example, I work as a teacher and we've got exams coming soon,

so we all need to knuckle down.

Or I study law, and I have my exams soon, so I really need to knuckle down.

Right?

To focus studying or working. Lovely.

Number two,

very often in IELTS speaking part one, you have a question about can you cook?

Can you run? Can you drive? Can you paint? Right.

Here a nice phrasal verb is “to get round to” or “to get around to”.

We can say round or around.

Which means to do something you have intended to do

but you've been too busy to do it, but to finally do it, right?

So for example, if somebody asks somebody, the examiner asks, “Can you cook?”

“Well, I would love to learn how to cook, but I just haven't got round to it.

I’ve been too busy. I haven't got round to it.” Great.

Bit like my wife says, you know.

“Have you cleaned the bathroom yet?”

and I say, “No, I’ve been busy making a YouTube video.

I haven't got round to it yet.”

next hobbies, right?

We often talk about free time or hobbies in IELTS.

And spending time maybe watching movies, reading books,

scrolling on your phone.

So here a nice phrasal verb is, “to while away”.

And I would link while-away, while-away.

And this means to spend time in a relaxed way, right?

And it's separable.

It's a while away the afternoon.

Or to while the morning away,

spending time doing something.

For example,

I love to while away the afternoon watching movies.

What about you? How do you while away the afternoon?

That's interesting.

Great.

Next one.

Also talking about hobbies?

Now if you want to talk about improving a skill that you had,

but you haven't practiced for quite a long time,

“to brush up on”.

Here this is a phrasal verb that has two prepositions or adverb particles.

To brush up on something.

So listen to the linking.

Brush up-on, brush up-on, brush up-on something.

Nice.

An example,

I love playing the guitar. It's true.

Actually I love playing the guitar, but I need to brush up on it

because I haven't played for some time.

Very nice, right?

Is there anything you need to brush up on?

Cool.

That's it. Let's move on.

Now, some more about phrasal verbs.

So phrasal verbs are complicated? Oh! No.

Phrasal verbs are really interesting because of the word order.

We've got two kinds of phrasal verbs, right?

Separable, a bit like my new great earphones, right?

My beats earphones.

They are separable.

Great magnet, right?

Or they're separable.

Or you have inseparable,

which are close together, right?

A bit like a husband and wife or a boyfriend or girlfriend.

They cannot be separated.

So first of all, separable phrasal verbs.

You've got your verb, preposition.

If you have an object

then you can put it in between the verb and the preposition.

For example, if we take "to look up",

meaning to find the meaning of a word in a dictionary.

I look a word up.

I can separate look and up.

I look the word up.

You could also put the thing at the end.

I look up a word, right?

However, if you use “it” instead of a word, you must put it in the middle.

I look it up.

Yeah. Not I look up it.

No, no, doesn't work.

I look it up, right?

Now what about inseparable phrasal verbs?

Like you and your cat may be.

Or you and your dog. You know, Inseparable.

Then here, the verb and the preposition, they must stay together.

For example, take after.

Meaning to resemble or look like one of your parents.

I take after my father, right?

I cannot say I take my father after.

No, you cannot separate them, right?

I take after my father.

Or I take after him, right?

The object always goes at the end.

Now you may be thinking, “Okay Keith, good. So how do I know

which phrasal verbs are separable and which are inseparable?”

well, this is where English is really fun, right?

Because there are no rules to help you, right?

You have to learn them by heart,

which means it's quite dangerous to learn lists of 20, 30, 50 phrasal verbs.

It's really important you learn them in context.

But also a few at a time, right?

I’m giving you 15 today, that's a lot.

I mean I would learn maybe 5 at a time.

Because you need to learn each one by heart, is it separable or inseparable.

And you can find out from the dictionary examples, right?

That will show you if it's separable or inseparable.

Great.

Right.

Next batch.

Do you know in IELTS speaking part three, you often get a question that is

how will something change in the future, right.

You heard that kind of question?

It's very common, right.

How will shopping change in the future or news or the economy, whatever, right?

Here are four really nice phrasal verbs you can use in that context.

The first one is “to bank on”.

To bank-on.

Which means to expect and hope something will happen.

It's a bit like,

if you imagine money, investing money in something

and you hope to get a result, right?

Like the bank is where you've got your money.

So you're banking on something.

For example, I’m banking on the COVID situation getting better next year.

Or many governments are banking on the economy improving in the future,

right.

They hope it will get better. Nice.

Number two, “to be in for”.

To be in for.

This one, phrasal verb has two prepositions or particles to be in for,

means you are about to have or experience something.

This is nice because it's so simple, right?

To be in for.

For example, you may be asked how do you think shopping will change in the future.

Well, I think we are in for a few surprises in the future,

right.

We're expecting a few surprises or we're about to get a few surprises.

Or many real shops are in for a hard time next year,

as most people will choose to shop online.

Nice.

The next one is “to pan out”,

which means to result or develop in a certain way

and this is great to talk about the future, right.

You could say, I think things will get better,

but we will have to see how things pan out.

Right.

So how things will develop in the future.

We'll have to see how things pan out or pan-out.

Linking.

Another example,

I think our goal of getting everyone vaccinated this year,

isn't going to pan out.

Nice.

Next one,

“to run up against” another one with two prepositions to run up, against.

Meaning to face problems or difficult situations, right?

So how is something going to change in the future?

Maybe you say,

“I think we're going to run up against a lot of problems in this area”

listen to the connection, run up against.

Run up against, right.

Or I think we're going to run up against more crime in the future.

We're going to run up against more blah-blah-blah in the future.

Very flexible, very nice.

I think that will impress your examiner.

Let's move on.

Oh! Sorry. I gotta stop laughing.

I just I don't know why, I just start laughing sometimes.

Now next,

phrasal verbs are tricky? No.

Actually phrasal verbs are so exciting.

Because they give you the chance to show off your control of pronunciation.

You may have noticed many phrasal verbs end in a consonant sound

and the preposition begins with a vowel sound.

So you can link, right?

Instead of sit up, sit-up, right?

Instead of speak up, speak-up, cup, speak up.

Tup, sit-up,

right?

Which is great.

So it's an opportunity to show off your pronunciation.

Particularly notice these examples, where we look in the present tense, right?

I like to look-up new words.

Can you hear that? Look-up.

I like to look-up new words.

If we're using the third person he or she,

he looks up words all the time.

Looks up, sup, looks-up.

He looks up words all the time.

My wife is studying Spanish and she looks-up words all the time.

Can you hear it? Sup.

What's up?

And in the past tense,

very, very common, right?

Last week she looked-up a lot of words.

Looked-up, tup, looked-up.

She looked-up a lot of words, right.

So many, many phrasal verbs give you this wonderful opportunity

to show off your control of the the linking

present tense with he and she and the past tense.

How cool is that?

Great.

Let's move on.

Right.

Next phrasal verbs it's very common, right?

In IELTS speaking, that the examiner asks you,

what do you think of blah-blah-blah, right.

And a really clever trick

and I’m sorry but this is a trick, right.

Is you can say, you can use the phrasal verb “to mull over”.

To mull over something, is to think carefully about something, right?

It's separable.

So you could say,

well I’ve been mulling over this a lot recently and I think

or I’ve been mulling this over a lot recently and I think, right?

Little trick.

Another nice phrasal verb is “to figure out”.

To figure-out.

And often we put the rah, route.

Figure-out.

To figure-out something means to find the solution to something, right?

So what do you think of blah-blah-blah?

Well, it's complicated and it's not easy to figure out a solution,

right.

And then you carry on.

Giving your solution.

Okay. To figure-out.

Next one.

Again IELTS speaking part three, very common to ask or to be asked.

Do you agree that the government should do this, right?

There's always a government question.

Do you agree that the government should bla-bla-bla-bla, right?

Now a couple of nice phrasal verbs here.

And easy to remember are “get on with”.

Get-on with something.

Which means to start or continue doing something, right?

So for example,

the government talks about reducing the crime rate,

but they just need to get on with it, right?

They need to start doing it, right?

Don't just talk about it, get on with it.

Nice.

The other phrasal verb for this kind of question is “to buckle down”,

which means to start working hard.

You know, so the examiner asked do you think the government should

blah-blah-blah-blah-blah?

Well, I think it's time that the government buckled down and found a solution.

Okay, simple phrases but quite effective phrasal verbs.

Moving on.

IELTS speaking part two.

Sometimes you're asked to describe a thing, right?

Maybe a movie or a book or a dinner or a restaurant or a hotel, right?

A lovely phrasal verb here is “to stumble upon”.

Stumble-upon.

Can you say that?

Stumble-upon.

To stumble-upon something, is to find it by chance, right?

Now, so you might say,

I’d like to tell you about a great book that I stumbled upon recently, right.

Meaning that I found recently but what a great verb.

I’d like to tell you about a great restaurant that I stumbled upon last week, right.

A great anything, great hotel, restaurant, movie.

Stumble-upon is for things, right? Not people, but for things.

If you want to talk about people, we have a really nice phrasal verb.

So to meet someone by chance, right?

Is “to bump into”.

Bump-into.

Can you say that? Bump-into.

Great.

To meet by chance.

So if you're asked describe a time when you did blah-blah-blah-blah-blah, right.

You could say, well, recently I bumped into an old friend and he……, right?

Very simple, right? Notice the pronunciation. The past tense, bumped into, tintu, bumped-into.

Last week I bumped-into an old friend and he ………, right?

Lovely.

The last one is to describe something that happens in a certain way.

And the verb is “to turn out”.

Different ways to use it.

But the one of the most common ones is it turned out well, right?

Means it finished or ended up well.

It turned-out well.

So if you're talking about an event or an activity, you could say,

well, we had a difficult time, but in the end everything turned out fine, right?

Or in the end everything turned out well.

Again, notice that pronunciation turned out, d,

turn, in the past dout, turned-out.

Turned-out fine.

Turned-out well.

Lovely.

That's it.

Those are 15 phrasal verbs that I think will impress your IELTS examiner.

So, remember, phrasal verbs are really important, right?

Both for spoken English and written English.

They can make you sound much more natural.

It's really important I think to build up a base of some basic phrasal verbs,

but to get your IELTS 7 or 8, right.

You need to use less common,

idiomatic vocabulary including many, many phrasal verbs, right?

A word of warning though.

Really practice these as much as you can.

They have to sound natural.

If it doesn't, it can have a negative effect.

So only use the ones that you can confidently use naturally.

How do you build up that confidence? Keep practicing.

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telling me which one of these phrasal verbs

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