Example
poor (adjective)
Low in quality or standard.
The bus service in my area is quite poor, especially at weekends.
Written by Fizza Butool Zaidi and Ali Zaidi
13 alternatives
Low in quality or standard.
The bus service in my area is quite poor, especially at weekends.
Bad in effect or attitude.
Too much screen time can have a negative effect on sleep.
Causing harm.
Some cleaning products are harmful to children.
Causing damage; formal. Used with 'to'.
Long working hours can be detrimental to family life.
Not enjoyable.
The journey was unpleasant because the train was so crowded.
Very bad; emotional and informal.
The food at the hotel was terrible, so we ate out every night.
Don't swap blindly: Too emotional for most Writing; use poor or unsatisfactory.
Not as good as expected.
The film was disappointing after all the good reviews.
Not good enough or not enough.
Many rural schools have inadequate funding.
Bad for your health.
Fast food is cheap but unhealthy.
Not working properly; for machines and products.
I had to return the laptop because the screen was faulty.
Don't swap blindly: Only for objects and systems, not people or ideas.
Bad in degree; for problems, injuries, mistakes.
Traffic is a serious problem in my city.
Don't swap blindly: 'A bad problem' is unnatural; say 'a serious problem'.
Too bad to be allowed.
Waiting six months for an operation is unacceptable.
Bad in behaviour; impolite.
It's considered rude to arrive late for dinner in my culture.
Paraphrasing
Band tip: the public IELTS Writing band descriptors for Lexical Resource describe Band 7 as using “less common lexical items” with “some awareness of style and collocation”. A synonym that changes your meaning or breaks a collocation works against you, so choose the word that fits the sentence, not the rarest one you know.
In context
I'd say the biggest one is pollution. The air quality in some cities is really poor, and that's harmful to children and older people in particular. Housing is another issue: rents are so high that a lot of young people live in quite unpleasant conditions, which I think is unacceptable in a rich country.
Poor for quality, harmful or detrimental for effects, unpleasant for experiences, serious for problems, faulty for products, rude for behaviour.
It is understood but unnatural. 'A serious problem' or 'a major problem' are the normal collocations.
It is fine in Part 3, where answers are more abstract. In Part 1, 'bad for' or 'harmful' sounds more natural.
With illnesses and some fixed phrases: a bad cold, a bad back, bad weather, bad news. Here a synonym would sound strange.
Practise
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