Okay. Irrespective of how many times I've addressed this issue over the past few months, I still think that I haven't stressed it enough, but let me repeat it yet again. Breaking down the barrier that separates the intermediate and the advanced levels is no easy task. I get that. It depends on multiple elusive factors that seem to be irrelevant to most learners, but not to a teacher. And, of course, one of those factors is range. Yes... range, also known as, versatility.
Whenever we discuss people, for example, we tend to go down the easy road: "she is laid-back". Okay. "She is...". Nothing wrong with that, except it's far too simple and, let's face, from a grammatical point view, it doesn't really matter if you say "She's tall" or "She's obstreperous". Yes. Tall is A1 material. Obstreperous, though, is more unusual, but at the end of the day the structure is the same, isn't it?
A speaker shows range when they are able to successfully depart from the obvious structure (in this case she is) and use a whole different set of strategies. Consider these options:
- An adjective: she's perky
- A noun: he's a slacker
- An adjective + a noun: she's a glib politician
- An idiom: she has a reputation for being a loose cannon
- A phrase verb: he creeps me out
- A full sentence: he has been a loyal friend through thick and thin
If you use all of those, your description will not be boring or robotic. Remember that students at the intermediate level tend to describe people by rattling off lists of adjectives (She's smart, tall, dark-skinned and French), which is neither realistic nor particularly interesting.
As a sophisticated speaker, you're expected to resort to more varied strategies. So, be ready to ask yourself if you can choose between two similar options as in these cases:
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