Tag
Vocabulary
9 posts tagged Vocabulary from Dr Mariam's OET writing team.
Adverse or Averse, Counsellor or Councillor: Spelling Traps With Different Meanings
Adverse or averse? Counsellor or councillor? In OET writing these near-identical pairs swap one or two letters and change what your letter means. Learn both rules.
OET WritingLanguageVocabularySpellingUpdated 7 November 2026
Compliant or Complaint, Elicit or Illicit: Near-Homophone Traps That Change Clinical Meaning
Compliant or complaint? Elicit or illicit? In OET writing these near-homophones swap a single letter and change what your letter actually says. Learn both rules.
OET WritingLanguageVocabularySpellingUpdated 5 November 2026
Ensure, Insure, or Assure? The OET Vocabulary Trap
Ensure, insure, and assure are three distinct words with fixed clinical uses in OET writing. Learn the rule for each so your letters say exactly what you mean.
OET WritingLanguageVocabularyGrammarUpdated 3 November 2026
Advice or Advise, Practice or Practise: The Noun-vs-Verb Spelling Rule in OET Writing
Advise or advice, practice or practise — both pairs follow the same UK noun-vs-verb spelling rule. Learn it once in OET writing and fix both errors for good.
OET WritingLanguageSpellingVocabularyUpdated 31 October 2026
Redundancy and Tautology in OET Writing: Saying It Once, Correctly
Redundancy in OET writing — doubled phrases like 'past history' and 'future plans' — costs Conciseness & Clarity marks even when every word is spelled correctly. See the full list and how to cut it.
OET WritingConciseness & ClarityVocabularyGrammarUpdated 17 October 2026
Common Word Confusions in OET Writing: Affect vs Effect, Prescribe vs Proscribe
Word confusions in OET writing like affect vs effect and prescribe vs proscribe slip past spellcheck and cost Language marks. Learn the fixed rule for each pair.
OET WritingLanguageVocabularyGrammarUpdated 9 October 2026
"Unwell," Not "Sick": OET Clinical Register
Unwell vs sick in OET writing isn't a style preference — "sick" reads as casual and sometimes ambiguous in a clinical letter. See exactly when to use unwell, when sick is still correct, and why examiners notice the swap.
OET WritingGenre & StyleRegisterVocabularyUpdated 1 October 2026
Two Words Most OET Candidates Never Use (and Should): The Precision Vocabulary Fix
OET writing vocabulary precision: the two-word phrase 'has since' that most candidates never use, and how it replaces wordy, vague sentences with a single accurate one.
OET WritingLanguageVocabularyConciseness & ClarityUpdated 29 September 2026
Abbreviations in OET Writing: What to Use, What to Avoid, and How to Write Them
Which abbreviations are acceptable in OET letters, how to introduce unfamiliar ones, and the clinical punctuation conventions that differ from everyday English — covering the Language and Conciseness criteria.
OET WritingLanguageVocabularyClinical WritingUpdated 29 June 2026