Collocation for IELTS Word Failure

The collocation of words refers to the juxtaposition of two or more words that 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. Examiners are often on the 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.

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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 that is not only meaningful but also used commonly for a particular situation. There are 7 different categories of collocation that are commonly used in sentences - adverb+adjective, adjective+noun, noun+noun, noun+verb, verb+noun, verb+adverb, verb+expression with a preposition.

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

The word “Failure” as a noun means someone who wasn’t able to attain success or the desired goal. It is commonly used as a noun to indicate an unsuccessful person or a thing.

Failure as a noun:

Meaning: to refer to the rate of something negatively.

Sentence: The failure rate in civil service examination is pretty high, so it is a wise decision to have a proper backup.

Nouns commonly used before Failure:

Meaning: government, management

Sentence: The recession and the high rate of unemployment post covid is an indication of a complete government failure.

Meaning: heart, kidney, organ, lung, brain

Sentence: Robin was put on life support after complete organ failure.

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Meaning: brake, engine, hardware, software, system

Sentence: Due to the engine failure, everyone was stranded in the middle of a jungle with no network.

Meaning: power

Sentence: The power failure happened in the middle of an exam and all the students started panicking.

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Failure used as an adjective:

Meaning: complete, total, abject, entire, colossal

Sentence: The colossal failure of the concert after multiple allegations proved that the public doesn’t separate the art from the artist.

Meaning: inevitable, costly, allegedly, unexpected

Sentence: The unexpected failure of the recent product launch shook the employee’s morale in the company.

Meaning: economic, financial

Sentence: The high inflation rates and suicide of farmers indicate an economic failure and need immediate solutions.

Meaning: personal, moral

Sentence: Anita considered it a personal failure when she was unable to crack the entrance exam.

Verb+ Failure

Meaning: doomed, result in, lead to, end in

Sentence: The leader was sure that the plan would end in failure and he still went ahead with it.

Meaning: represent, prove

Sentence: The conference proved to be a massive failure as no country was able to negotiate its terms with the neighboring countries.

Meaning: avoid, fear

Sentence: Steven did everything within his limits to avoid another failure.

Meaning: excuse, explain justify

Sentence: Nothing justifies the failure to embrace at the time of massive crisis to survive.

Commonly used phrases:

Meaning: failure of failure

Sentence: It is the fear of failure that stops many individuals to execute their brilliant ideas.

Meaning: a history of failure

Sentence: Having a long history of academic failures, it takes a lot of courage for Anthony to give it another shot.

Failure as a preposition:

Meaning: in

Sentence: A failure in understanding others indicates a lack of empathy.