Today, let’s learn 30 interesting idioms related to the topic of Education with azVocab. These are idioms you can use in the Speaking section to make your speech sound more natural. Let’s take a look at these idioms below!
| IDIOMS | MEANING | EXAMPLE |
| Get the hang of something | to learn how to do something, esp. when it is not simple or obvious | After practicing this program a few times, I could get the hang of it. |
| Can’t make head nor tail of something | to not be able to understand something | I can’t make head nor tail of what she just explained to me. |
| Do/try your (very) best | to make the greatest effort possible | I will do my very best to pass this exam. |
| Do wonders for sth/sb | to cause improvements or have a very good effect | Reading books will do wonders for me because it can help me widen my knowledge about the world. |
| Be quick on the uptake | if someone is quick on the uptake, they understand things easily | My sister is not an expert yet but she is quick on the uptake. |
| Someone’s Achilles’ heel | a small weakness in a person that can result in failure | English used to be my Achilles’ heel but now, it became my strongest point. |
| With flying colors | if you do something such as pass an exam with flying colors, you do it very successfully | I studied very hard so I passed this exam with flying colors. |
| In/by leaps and bounds | if someone or something gets better by/in leaps and bounds, he, she, or it improves very quickly | My English skill has improved in leaps and bounds. |
| At someone’s own pace | if you do something at your own pace, you do it at a speed that is comfortable for you | He is walking too fast, so I decided to go at my own pace. |
| Draw a blank | to fail to get an answer | I asked him about his plans for Christmas, but I just drew a blank. He didn’t seem to understand what I was asking him. |
| To be a copycat | to be someone who has few ideas of their own and does or says exactly the same as someone else | I don’t like talking to her about my homework because she’s such a copycat! I know she’ll steal my ideas and use them for her own essay. |
| Count noses | to count the number of people in a group to ensure that everyone is present | All students, take your seats on the bus so that I can count noses before we leave the museum. |
| Drop out of school | to stop attending school | She dropped out of school at the age of 14 to help her sick grandmother at home, but now she runs her own successful nursing home for the elderly. |
| Show of hands | a vote in which people raise one of their hands to show that they support a suggestion | With a show of hands, who would prefer to have longer working days but a shorter working week? |
| Learn something (off) by heart | learn all the words/things without any help | She learned all the compositions by Beethoven off by heart. |
| School of hard knocks | if you learn something in the school of hard knocks, you learn it as a result of difficult or unpleasant experiences | I wasn’t able to go to college, but I learned a lot in the school of hard knocks, it taught me a lot about life. |
| An A for effort | acknowledgment for having tried to do something, even if it was not successful | Jenny definitely deserves an A for effort, she put so much work into her entry for the competition. |
| School sb (in sth) | to tutor, train, or mentor one (in some skill, discipline, field, etc.) | I was schooled by a famous painter when I was studying impressionism. |
| Cut class/ play hooky/ skip class | to skip a school class or a day of school without an excuse | David has been cutting class again; I haven’t seen him in any of our French lessons for the past week. |
| You can’t teach an old dog new tricks | said to mean that it is very difficult to teach someone new skills or to change someone’s habits or character | Jeremy tries so hard to show me how the computer works, but he doesn’t understand that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. |
| Get off to a good start with sth | to begin an activity successfully | Thanks to my chemistry lessons, I got off to a good start with science. |
| Have a good command of sth | to be knowledgeable about or skilled in a particular area or thing | Nam has a remarkably good command of English. |
| Make oneself understood | to communicate effectively | I had a Chinese speaking test, but my Chinese is so limited that I couldn’t make myself understood. |
| Play truant | to be regularly absent from school without permission | Most parents are horrified when they discover their children have been playing truant from school. |
| Teacher’s pet | the teacher’s favourite student | I have to admit I definitely was the teacher’s pet at school! |
| Hit the books | to study | I can’t party with my friends much because I need to hit the books. |
| To be a bookworm | someone who reads a lot | My brother reads 5 hours a day. He is such a bookworm! |
| Burn the midnight oil | to study/work late into the night | I’ll need to burn the midnight oil to have any chance of finishing this paper before class tomorrow morning. |
| Sit an exam | to take an exam | The time when I have to sit an exam is really stressful because I need to stay up all night and have less time to relax. |
| The three Rs | used to refer to the basic areas of education: reading, writing, and mathematics | Some children are leaving school without even the basic three Rs. |
Through this article, azVocab hopes that learners can recognize the importance of using idiomatic expressions, remember these idioms, and apply them accurately and effectively in their Speaking test. This way, candidates can improve their Lexical Resource (vocabulary) score and overall IELTS Speaking score.
