The lexical resource bank.

Ban the obvious word.

Each prompt names the word you may not say. Paraphrase around it: the flexibility this forces is the exact skill the lexical descriptor rewards.

Answer for sixty to ninety seconds without using the banned word or any direct form of it. On replay, listen for two things: the paraphrases you found (mark the natural ones as keepers) and any collocation that sounded assembled rather than idiomatic. One unnatural collocation identified per session, drilled to automatic, outperforms twenty new words memorised from a list.

Say it without saying it.

The tag names the banned word.

• “important”Why does sleep matter so much for students?
• “difficult”Describe a challenge you faced when learning something new.
• “good”What makes a teacher worth remembering?
• “technology”How have phones changed the way people spend evenings?
• “environment”What is the biggest ecological problem where you live?
• “money”Why do people disagree about how to spend household income?
• “happy”Describe a time you felt genuinely content.
• “problem”What difficulties do new arrivals face in a big city?

Same topic, two rooms.

Answer each topic twice: thirty seconds as relaxed Part 1 conversation, then ninety seconds as formal Part 3 analysis. The vocabulary should change; the person should not.

• FoodWhat you ate last night → how diets are changing across your country.
• ExerciseWhether you enjoy sport → whether governments should fund public fitness.
• ShoppingWhere you buy clothes → what consumer culture does to a society.
• MusicWhat you listen to → whether art needs public subsidy.
• CommutingHow you get to work → how cities should manage congestion.

Collocation and register traps by background.

The habits Chapter 5 documents, each with a drill built to surface it.

The 80/15/5 replay.

Once a week, transcribe one two-minute answer and tag every content word by tier.

Roughly 80% Currency (accurate everyday words), 15% Gems (precise, less common), 5% Crown Jewels (exactly-right sophistication) is what strong Band 7+ speech looks like. Zero Gems means range is not being demonstrated; forced Jewels mean strain the examiner hears immediately. The full tier system, with word lists by band, is Chapter 9 of the book and the vocabulary-tiers bank here.