How can I practice Collocations?

Step Ahead Grammar offers free practice questions on Collocations with instant feedback, answers and Hindi explanations. You can also take timed tests.

Is Collocations important for exams?

Collocations appears in school exams and competitive exams like SSC and Bank PO English sections. Practising with exam-style questions improves accuracy and speed.

Collocations

Usage intermediate medium

Words that naturally go together — make a decision, take a photo, heavy rain — and why the wrong partner sounds odd.

Usage — Common choices, confusions and preposition errors.

Rules

1. A collocation is a natural word partnership: make a decision, not "do a decision". 2. Verb + noun: make a mistake, take a break, do homework, give an answer, have breakfast. 3. Adjective + noun: heavy rain, strong coffee, deep sleep, high temperature. 4. Adverb + adjective: highly successful, deeply sorry, completely different. 5. Verb + preposition: depend on, apply for, apologise for, consist of. 6. make vs do: make = create/produce (make a plan, make money); do = activities/tasks (do homework, do the dishes).

Explanation

Collocations make English sound natural. Grammatically "do a decision" is not wrong in structure, but native usage fixes the partner word. Learning words in chunks — not alone — is the fastest route to correct, fluent English.

हिंदी में

Collocation = शब्दों का स्वाभाविक जोड़ा। "make a decision" सही है, "do a decision" नहीं — भले ही व्याकरण में गलती न दिखे। शब्दों को अकेले नहीं, जोड़े में याद करें।

Examples

She made a decision quickly. — उसने जल्दी फैसला किया।
It was heavy rain all night. — रात भर तेज़ बारिश हुई।

Common Mistakes

{"mistake":"He did a mistake.","correction":"He made a mistake.","note":"\"make a mistake\" is the fixed collocation."}
{"mistake":"It was strong rain.","correction":"It was heavy rain.","note":"Rain collocates with \"heavy\", not \"strong\"."}

Practice Questions

Q1. Correct the sentence: "The wind was very strong and there was big rain."

Answer: The wind was very strong and there was heavy rain.

💡 Rain collocates with "heavy".

Q2. In English you can say "do a mistake" and "make homework".

True
False

Answer: False

💡 The collocations are "make a mistake" and "do homework".

Q3. Match each verb with its natural noun partner.

Answer: a-1|b-2|c-3|d-4

💡 make a decision, take a break, do business, pay attention.

Practice & Test Yourself

Take a free placement test to find your level, practise Collocations with instant feedback, then take a timed test.

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Topic	Level	What it covers
Singular / Plural	beginner	Making nouns singular and plural correctly.
Countable / Uncountable Nouns	elementary	Nouns you can count vs nouns you cannot.
Much / Many	elementary	Much for uncountable, many for countable.
Few / Little	intermediate	Few for countable, little for uncountable — with or without "a".
Some / Any	elementary	Some in positives and offers; any in negatives and questions.
Each / Every	intermediate	Each singles out; every groups all together.