Words That Work - CSS English Vocabulary Bank

Who this pack is for

Candidates who recognise a word on the page but cannot produce it under time. That gap costs marks in more than one place: the objective section asks synonyms and antonyms directly, and precis and comprehension both ask you to replace a word without changing what the sentence means.

What is inside

Three sets in one free PDF. The first is 330 high-frequency synonyms, arranged alphabetically as word families rather than single pairs. The second is 360 words drawn from Dawn, with anything already in the synonyms section taken out, so you never learn the same word twice. The third is 100 antonym questions set as objective practice, with the correct option marked so you can check yourself as you go.

Where the work pays off

Vocabulary pays in more places than any other part of English preparation. The same word can earn a mark in the objective section, keep a precis accurate, and save you a clause in the essay. An hour a week from early on does more here than a long push in the final month.

Learn in small blocks, not long lists

Reading a word list from beginning to end feels productive and leaves very little behind. The words that stay are the ones you have used.

1. Take fifteen to twenty words at a time. Beyond that, the later ones will not survive the day.
2. Read the word and its meaning, then cover the meaning and say it back from memory.
3. Write one sentence of your own that needs the word. Not a sentence about the word, a sentence that uses it.
4. Revise the same block the next day, and again a week later. The spacing is what moves a word from recognition into recall.

Check the shade before you use the word

Words in the same family share a core sense but not the same tone or grammar, so they are rarely safe to swap everywhere. Before you use a new word in a precis, read the sentence back and ask whether the meaning and the tone have both survived. If either has shifted, the substitution has cost you accuracy rather than earned you credit.

This matters most with the words taken from Dawn, which carry the register of a newspaper editorial and can sound overstated in a neutral precis.

What this is not

It is not a dictionary and not a complete vocabulary course. It is a working set of words that come up often in CSS English papers, gathered in one place and checked. Lists that circulate between candidates tend to be long, unattributed and full of repeats. This one is deliberately shorter: the overlaps were removed, and the antonym section shows its answers so you can test yourself instead of taking it on trust.