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Cool & contemporary vocab: transport

There are more people using more forms of transport now than ever before. People need to travel to get to school, college or work, but all the cars and buses on the road cause a lot of traffic jams and pollution. In large cities like Beijing and even London and Paris, both have become serious problems.

Until technology and our governments find an effective solution to enable us to travel quickly, cheaply and in an environmentally-friendly way, we will continue to face the problems of heavy congestion and polluted air. Whether the electric car is the best answer remains to be seen, but it is definitely a step in the right direction!

electric car

Vocabulary

 

  • pollutants
  • meaning = a substance that makes water or air dirty or polluted

    example = “There are many pollutants in the air in London.”

 

  • carbon emissions
  • meaning = carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide released into the atmosphere by vehicles and industrial processes

    example = “People should use their cars less to reduce carbon emissions.”

 

  • polluting vehicles
  • meaning = cars, buses, lorries etc that use fuel and cause pollution

    example = “There are too many polluting vehicles on the road in my city.”

 

  • hybrid cars / buses
  • meaning = a car or bus with a petrol engine and an electric motor, each of which can propel it

    example = “The first hybrid buses were introduced in my city last year.”

 

  • plug-in electric vehicles
  • meaning = any motor vehicle that can be recharged from an external source of electricity

    example = “Plug-in electric cars are the future of transport because they don’t cause any pollution.”

 

  • (EV) charging points / stations
  • meaning = the places where you can plug in your electric vehicle (EV) to charge it

    example = “Some supermarket carparks now have charging points for electric cars.”

 

  • environmentally-friendly
  • meaning = not harmful to the environment

    example = “Cycling is the most environmentally-friendly form of transport.”

 

  • car sharing
  • meaning = the practice of sharing a car for regular travelling, especially for commuting

    example = “The company I work for has a great car sharing scheme.”

 

  • to tackle air pollution
  • meaning = to resolve the problem of contamination in the air

    example = “Banning all cars from city centres is one way of tackling air pollution in urban areas.”

 

  • contributes to
  • meaning = is one factor which helps to create something

    example = “Air pollution contributes to global warming.”

 


Phrasal verbs

 

  • to pay off
  • meaning = when something eventually produces good results after a period of time

    example = “Cycling to work was an effort at first, but it’s really paid off because I’ver saved loads of money.”

 

  • to pull in
  • meaning = when you drive off the road into another place in order to stop your car

    example = “I pulled into the shopping centre carpark to recharge my car at their charging station.”

 

  • to hook up
  • meaning = to connect to something

    example = “I hook up my electric TESLA car to my power wall to charge it.”

 

  • to phase out
  • meaning = to reduce the production and availability of something before it is stopped completely

    example = “Over the next few decades petrol-run cars will be phased out and replaced with electric cars.”

 

Comments

These words and phrases would be great for the Part 1 questions in this practice test:

Practice Test 3 - Travel

Try them out with a friend or book a practice speaking test with an iPass tutor!

By Jenny Bedwell on 2016 10 20

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