Collocation for IELTS Word - Difficulty

Collocation of words refers to the juxtaposition of two or more words which are commonly put together in articulating an expression. It is not always necessary to have grammatical reasons for this association. These collocations are used by native speakers in their everyday life, so using such collocations in the IELTS exam increases your chances of scoring higher as it shows you’re well versed with the common usage of the language.

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Examiners are often on a lookout for such collocations in the IELTS speaking and writing tasks, so it is advisable that you should seriously look into such associations to improve your vocabulary.

From the academic collocation list of IELTS it can be seen that collocations are 2-3 words connected together to form a meaningful phrase. For example - when we enjoy a party, we usually compliment it by saying that it was “great fun” and not “big fun” - though going by the pedantic meaning both the phrases might mean the same, we don’t use the latter. Therefore, it is essential to know which words come together to form a phrase which is not only meaningful but also used commonly for a particular situation. There are 7 different categories of collocation which are commonly used in sentences - adverb+adjective, adjective+noun, noun+noun, noun+verb, verb+noun, verb+adverb, verb+expression with preposition.

Let us study the list of important collocations for IELTS of the word ‘difficulty’ below:

The word difficulty as a noun means a state or a condition of being difficult or a problem.

The following provides the usage of the word- “difficulty” in relation to different parts of speech:

“Difficulty” used as a state of being difficult

(Adjective + Difficulty)

Meaning: considerable, enormous, great, grave, major, extreme, severe. (seriousness)

Sentence: Naina had great difficulty in persuading the panelists to give her the job.

Also, Check:

Meaning: insurmountable, insuperable (unable to overcome)

Sentence: The difficulty in distributing health kits to young children is painstaking but not certainly insuperable.

Meaning: behavioural, emotional, financial, mental, logistical, practical (particular area)

Sentence: The child was facing mental difficulty while communicating with peers.

Meaning: inherent, particular, specific

Sentence: There are some specific difficulties which are faced by all website users online.

“Difficulty” as a problem

(Verb + Difficulty)

Meaning: encounter, experience, face, get into, run into

Sentence: The portal is encountering numerous difficulties before launch, hence we need to overcome this situation at any cost.

Meaning: cause, create, make, present

Sentence: The new rules in school will cause difficulty for students with physical disabilities.

Meaning: cope up, deal with, overcome, solve, resolve, surmount

Sentence: In order to overcome the difficulty, the board needs to make radical changes in the company.

Meaning: be fraught with

Sentence: The entire situation is fraught with difficulties and the papers they showed as not not only fake but also copied from some other case.

Meaning: avoid

Sentence: In order to avoid difficulty in running a marathon, Serena needs to regularly exercise.

(Difficulty + Verb)

Meaning: arise, crop up.

Sentence: Difficulties arise when employees do not communicate with their employer, hence there should be more scope of understanding so that there can be less miss communication.

Meaning: lie

Sentence: The difficulty lies in fixing the date of the surgery.

Difficulty as a preposition

Meaning: despite a/the

Sentence: Despite the difficulty in understanding physics concepts, he is still curious about astrophysics.

Meaning: in

Sentence: Everyone in the party noticed that William was facing difficulty in walking.

Meaning: with/without

Sentence: The entire project was completed smoothly without any difficulties.

Meaning: of

Sentence: The difficulty of finding good educational institutions in rural areas.

Meaning: with

Sentence: Serena is having difficulty with the engine, so she decided to walk her way home instead.

“Difficulty” used to explain the degree of certain things in order to quantify it

Meaning: levels

Sentence: The test has varying levels of difficulty.