Effort Collocation for IELTS: A List to Boost Your Score

Nehasri Ravishenbagam

7 min read

Updated On Nov 04, 2025

Improve your IELTS speaking and writing scores with effort collocations. This guide covers examples of verbs, nouns, and adjectives used in different contexts with practice exercises to help you sound natural, confident, and exam-ready for Band 7.0+.

Lists of Effort Collocations for IELTS to Boost Your Score
Notes
Effort Collocation for IELTS: Practice Exercises
Answer Keys for Practice Exercises Effort Collocations

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Expressing hard work, persistence, and determination is essential in the IELTS exam, especially when you are describing your study habits, teamwork, or personal goals. The word ‘effort’ plays a central role in this kind of expression. However, repeating the word can affect your score. So, learning the effort collocation for IELTS is essential.

This blog provides a complete guide to top important collocations for IELTS related to effort, including Verb + Effort, Noun + Effort, Adjective + Effort, and Common Expressions with meanings and example sentences for clear IELTS usage guidance.

Lists of Effort Collocations for IELTS to Boost Your Score

High-scoring IELTS candidates use accurate and natural collocations. Therefore, mastering these effort collocations for IELTS allows you to discuss personal achievements, social campaigns, or educational challenges with accuracy and style.

Thus, the following tables will provide various effort collocations for IELTS. Every table will feature the meaning and the sample sentences for each collocation associated with the word ‘effort’.

Verb + Effort Collocations

These effort combinations describe how effort is made, required, or valued. They are ideal for describing processes, teamwork, or personal goals in IELTS Speaking or Writing.

Verb + Effort	Meaning	Example Sentence
expend effort	to use energy or time doing something	The team expended great effort to complete the project on time.
go into (an effort)	to be part of the energy/time used to achieve something	A lot of effort goes into organizing such a large event.
make an effort	to try hard to do something	Students should make an effort to improve their pronunciation.
require effort	to need hard work or energy	Learning a new language requires consistent effort.
reward effort	to give recognition or benefit for hard work	The school rewards students’ efforts with certificates of achievement.
save effort	to reduce the amount of work needed	Online tools can save time and effort during research.
combine effort	to work together towards a shared goal	The volunteers combined their efforts to help flood victims.
redouble effort	to increase determination or hard work	After the setback, the team redoubled their efforts to succeed.

Noun + Effort Collocations

These collocations highlight different types or contexts in which effort is used. They work well in academic and formal writing, like in IELTS Writing Task 1, especially in discussions of campaigns, achievements, or projects.

Noun + Effort	Meaning	Example Sentence
waste of effort	unnecessary or unproductive work	Arguing about minor details is often a waste of effort.
prize for effort	recognition given for trying hard	The school awards a prize for effort to encourage persistence.
relief effort	organized help during disasters	The Red Cross coordinated the relief efforts after the earthquake.
war effort	collective work towards victory in war	Civilians contributed to the war effort by rationing resources.
fund-raising effort	organized activity to collect money	The charity launched a fund-raising effort to support local schools.
research effort	organized academic or scientific work	A global research effort is underway to combat climate change.
team effort	collaborative work toward a common goal	The success of the event was truly a team effort.

Common Adjective + Effort Collocations

Adjectives modify ‘effort’ to describe the intensity, quality, or nature of the hard work involved. Using precise adjectives can instantly make your writing more advanced and descriptive.

Adjective + Effort	Meaning	Example Sentence
concerted effort	planned and determined group effort	A concerted effort is required to reduce carbon emissions.
extra effort	additional hard work	Students need to put in extra effort before the final exam.
determined effort	strong and focused attempt	She made a determined effort to complete her degree.
feeble effort	weak or half-hearted attempt	His feeble effort to apologize didn’t convince anyone.
supreme effort	the highest possible level of hard work	The athlete made a supreme effort to win the gold medal.
joint effort	combined attempt by two or more parties	The project succeeded through a joint effort between schools and NGOs.
sustained effort	continuous and consistent hard work	Achieving fluency requires sustained effort over time.
collective effort	effort made by a group	Environmental protection demands a collective effort from all nations.

Common Expressions with ‘Effort’

These expressions are widely used in both formal and conversational English and are ideal for IELTS Writing and Speaking to sound fluent and idiomatic.

Expression	Meaning	Example Sentence
time and effort in setting up training schemes	energy and time spent to establish programs	The company invested considerable time and effort in setting up training schemes for new staff.
well worth the effort	the result justifies the work	Learning English is challenging but well worth the effort.
in an effort to	in order to try to achieve something	The hospital launched a campaign in an effort to recruit more blood donors.
the minimum of effort	using as little work as possible	He completed the task with the minimum of effort—he’s obviously very bright.
want of effort	lack of trying	The failure was not due to a want of effort, but lack of planning.
a great deal of effort	a lot of hard work	It took a great deal of effort to make the weekend a success.
put effort into (something)	to try hard to achieve something	You need to put more effort into your writing practice.
take effort	require energy or attention	Maintaining friendships takes effort and understanding.

Notes

Note the use of the quantifiers every and no in the following common expressions:

Every effort is being made to rectify the problem.
We will spare no effort to find out who did this.

‘In an effort to’ means ‘in order to’:

We’ve reduced our workforce in an effort to cut costs.

If something is a ‘real effort’, it is very difficult:

Dad’s very weak now. It’s a real effort just to talk.

Effort Collocation for IELTS: Practice Exercises

There are a few exercises given below that you will have to complete to assist you in improving your understanding and your ability to use effort collocations for the IELTS test.

Exercise A: Use the correct form of these verbs.

expend	go into
make	require
reward	save

If you want to get good grades, you’d better start ___________ more of an effort. As it is, you’ll be lucky to scrape a pass.
Learning a language as a child seems to involve no effort at all, but learning it as an adult ___________ a lot of time and effort.
Following record sales over the Christmas period, the staff were___________ for their efforts with a New Year bonus of £300.
I’d tackle the problem now if I were you. It’ll only take a couple of hours and it’ll ___________ you a lot of time and effort in the long run.
A lot of effort has___________ making this event a success. I’d like to thank all of those who were involved.
After ___________ all that effort on training to be a doctor, she decided that she wanted to do something else. What a terrible waste of time!

Exercise B: Use these adjectives to complete the sentences.

concerted	extra
determined	feeble
–	supreme

My father is making a huge effort to stop smoking.
-Good for him! Tell him I’m also making a ___________ effort to kick the habit! I haven’t had a cigarette for a week!
It’s not an easy book to read but it’s extremely interesting. It’s well worth putting in the ___________ effort to understand it.
Jon can be so irritating. He made a ___________ effort to help me with the dishes. I think he dried one plate and then went round telling people he had done the dishes!
Some people can lose weight virtually overnight, but for most people, dieting requires a ___________ effort of will.
Now, for many of our guests this will be their first time abroad, so let’s all make a ___________ effort to make our Russian colleagues welcome.

Exercise C: Match the two halves of the sentences below.

If we fail, it won’t be for
This company has invested a great deal of
He passed his exams with
I know it’s a long climb to the top of the hill, but the view from the top is
Everybody on our social committee has put in
We’ve started a massive advertising campaign

time and effort in setting up training schemes.
well worth the effort.
in an effort to recruit more blood donors.
the minimum of effort. He’s obviously very bright.
want of effort.
a great deal of effort to make the weekend a success.

Exercise D: Use these nouns to complete the sentences.

waste

prize

relief

war

fund-raising

The___________ efforts of local people have resulted in over £10,000 being raised for cancer research in the past year.
___________ efforts in the Congo are being hampered by the on-going civil war.
People started to wear yellow badges to show their support for the___________ effort.
The only ___________ I won at school was one for effort. At least I tried! And that’s more important than coming first!
A lot of grammar study is a___________ of time and effort. Collocation is much more useful.

Answer Keys for Practice Exercises Effort Collocations

Exercise A:

1. making

2. requires

3. rewarded

4. save

5. gone into

6. expending

Exercise B:

1. determined

2. extra

3. feeble

4. supreme

5. concerted

Exercise C:

1. e

2. a

3. d

4. b

5. f

6. c

Exercise D:

1. fund-raising

2. Relief

3. war

4. prize

5. waste

To conclude, ‘effort’ is a versatile and high-utility word in IELTS contexts. Using its collocations and expressions accurately can help you express hard work, motivation, and determination in a way that sounds both natural and academic. Therefore, start incorporating these effort collocations into your essays and speaking responses to strengthen your IELTS vocabulary range and lexical precision.

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