Virtuous English AcademyEducation & Study — B1 English Vocabulary
This B1 vocabulary list gathers 40 intermediate English words about education & study — university, exams and learning skills. Every word comes with a simple definition, its British-English pronunciation and a natural example sentence, so you learn each one in real context. When you are ready, open the flashcards to practise and remember them for good.
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Using education & study words in English
Academic vocabulary contains the single most damaging false friend in exam English: in most European languages the verb for sitting an examination looks like pass, but in English pass means you succeeded. Saying I passed the exam but I do not know the result is a contradiction. This page also fixes the collocations around exams, which are unusually rigid, and a British-American split in the word tuition.
What to watch out for
Take an exam; pass means you succeeded
You take, sit or do an exam — British English prefers sit, and Americans say take. You pass it only if you got a good enough mark, and you fail if you did not. Never make an exam, which is what a teacher does when writing one. So I am taking my exams next week and I passed all of them are two different pieces of news.
Graduate from, and tuition changes country
You graduate from a university, with from: She graduated from Leeds in 2020. In British English tuition means the teaching itself — private tuition is one-to-one lessons — while in American English tuition means the fees. British students call the money tuition fees or just fees, which resolves the ambiguity.
Curriculum, assignment, revision
Curriculum has the Latin plural curricula, though curriculums is now accepted. An assignment is a piece of set work, and you hand it in or submit it — the British phrase is not give the homework. And British revision means going back over material before an exam, not correcting a text; the verb is revise, so I am revising for chemistry means studying.
Words learners mix up
Three tables: four nouns whose countability does not match the word your own language uses, the British names for the people and the places, and four verbs whose prepositions are decided for you.
Four nouns that count differently from their translations
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| vocabulary | The whole stock of words somebody knows. Uncountable in this sense, so a single item is a word, not a vocabulary. | Reading is the fastest way to build vocabulary. |
| instruction | Uncountable when it means teaching — instruction in English — and countable when it means steps to follow. | Read the instructions before you start. |
| literacy | The ability to read and write, treated as one quality. No article and no plural. | The programme aims to improve adult literacy. |
| practice | British English spells the noun with a c and the verb with an s. The noun is uncountable when it means repeated training. | You need more practice with the past tense. |
The practice and practise split is British only, since American English uses the c spelling for both. It is worth fixing because it is one of the very few spelling errors an examiner is certain to notice, and the sound gives no clue at all — the two forms are pronounced identically, unlike the advice and advise pair on the communication list.
The British names for the people and the places
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| tutor | At school, a private teacher you pay for extra help. At a British university, the academic responsible for your progress. | She hired a maths tutor before the exams. |
| headteacher | The person in charge of a British school, written as one word. American English says principal. | The headteacher spoke at the ceremony. |
| seminar | A small teaching group where students discuss. The large one-way version is a lecture. | We have a seminar every Thursday. |
| campus | The grounds and buildings of a university taken together. Countable, but usually used without an article after on. | Most first-year students live on campus. |
The articles are the difficulty rather than the words. British English says on campus, at university and at school with no article when you mean the activity rather than the building, where American English prefers in college. Put an article back in and the meaning shifts to the physical place: I am at the school means you are standing outside it.
Four verbs and the prepositions that come with them
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| enrol | One l in British English, doubled in enrolled. You enrol on a course in Britain and in one in America. | I have enrolled on an evening course. |
| attend | Takes a direct object with no preposition at all. Attend to exists but means to deal with something. | All students must attend the first seminar. |
| memorise | To commit to memory on purpose. The everyday spoken phrase is learn by heart. | Do not simply memorise the rules. |
| educate | Almost always passive about a person, and the place takes at or in, never from. | He was educated at a state school. |
Attend is the one that costs marks. Most languages put a preposition after their equivalent verb and English refuses one here, exactly as it does with discuss, enter and answer. So we discussed about the topic is a pattern error rather than a vocabulary one, and it survives long past B1 unless it is deliberately unlearned.
Collocations that sound natural
Six words that are almost never used alone in academic English. The individual words are familiar; the frames around them are the part that has to be learned.
scholarship
win a scholarshipapply for a scholarshipa full scholarshipon a scholarship
You win or are awarded a scholarship rather than getting one, and while you hold it you are on a scholarship. Money that does not depend on results is a grant, and money you have to pay back is a loan.
topic
choose a topicthe topic of the essaystick to the topicoff topic
A topic is what one piece of work is about; a subject in British English is what you study at school. So my favourite subject is history and the topic of my essay is the war. Off topic takes no article.
concept
grasp a concepta difficult conceptthe concept of freedombasic concepts
Nearly always followed by of and a noun, and the verb beside it is grasp or understand rather than know. In speech people say idea; concept belongs to writing and to lectures.
discipline
strict disciplineself-disciplinean academic disciplinediscipline yourself to
Two unrelated senses share one spelling: control over behaviour, which is uncountable, and a field of study, which is countable. Self-discipline keeps its hyphen and is the sense that belongs on a personal statement.
spelling
check your spellinga spelling mistakeBritish spellinga spelling test
Uncountable when it means the skill and countable when it means one particular form, as in the American spelling of colour. Note the order in a spelling mistake — English puts the noun in front rather than saying a mistake of spelling.
expert
an expert inan expert onbecome an expertexpert advice
The preposition splits by what follows: an expert in a field you practise, an expert on a subject you have studied. As an adjective it goes straight in front of the noun and cannot follow be, so his advice is expert sounds wrong.
Where each word belongs
Seven words carrying a country, a level of formality or a second meaning that has nothing to do with education. These are the ones most likely to make otherwise correct academic writing sound slightly off.
- semesterAmerican · Britain says termBritish schools divide the year into three terms, and British universities increasingly use two semesters under American influence. Both are countable and both are safe in writing, but a British school year gives you half term and the summer term, which have no semester equivalent.
- academicTwo senses · one of them dismissiveEntirely neutral in the academic year and academic writing. But the question is purely academic means it no longer matters in practice, which is close to an insult. As a noun it names a university researcher.
- fluentStronger than it looksClaiming to be fluent means you can hold any conversation without effort, which is well above this level. The honest British ladder runs a little, conversational, good, then fluent. The preposition is in and the noun fluency takes no plural.
- bachelorFormal · and an unrelated second senseIn education it names the first university degree, usually shortened to BA or BSc. The same word means an unmarried man, which is one reason the degree is normally written bachelor’s degree with the apostrophe rather than bachelor degree.
- beginnerA level, not a description of youEnglish says I am a beginner or at beginner level, never I am beginner. The ladder British course providers use runs beginner, elementary, intermediate, upper-intermediate, advanced, and only the first works comfortably as a noun about a person.
- explanationCountable · with of or forIt needs an article, and the preposition splits by what follows: an explanation of the theory against an explanation for the delay. The verb explain cannot take the listener as its object, so it is explain it to me and never explain me.
- qualifiedBritish · a specific claimIt means you hold the formal certificate for a job, as in a qualified teacher. Used without a field attached it is a strong claim in Britain, pointing at a licence or a registration. For simply being able to do the work, the words are able and competent.
Sentences to try
Four frames from a real academic year. Notice which verb goes with the exam in each one.
- I am sitting four examinations in June.
- She graduated from university with a first-class degree.
- The assignment has to be submitted before the end of term.
- He won a scholarship that covers his tuition fees.
Questions about education & study vocabulary
Does "pass an exam" mean take an exam?
No, and this is one of the most consequential false friends in English. Pass means you succeeded — you reached the required mark: I passed my driving test. The verbs for simply doing the exam are take, sit or do: I am taking three exams this term. Because the cognate in French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and several other languages means to sit rather than to succeed, learners frequently announce a pass they have not yet earned. The opposite of pass is fail.
Is it "graduate from" or "graduate in"?
You graduate from an institution — She graduated from Manchester — and you graduate in a subject: He graduated in economics. Both can appear together: I graduated from Bristol in history. American English sometimes drops the preposition entirely, as in She graduated college, but that is not standard in British English. The person is a graduate, and someone studying for a second degree is a postgraduate.
What does "tuition" mean in British English?
In British English tuition means the teaching itself, especially in small groups or one to one: She has private tuition in maths. The money students pay is called tuition fees or simply fees. In American English tuition on its own means the fees, which is why the word behaves differently on either side of the Atlantic. A person who gives private tuition is a tutor, and at a British university a tutor is also the academic who supervises your work.