Example
hard (adjective)
The everyday swap; slightly less formal.
It was hard to make friends in the first few months.
Written by Fizza Butool Zaidi and Ali Zaidi
12 alternatives
The everyday swap; slightly less formal.
It was hard to make friends in the first few months.
Difficult in a way that tests your ability; often positive.
My job is challenging, but I enjoy solving problems.
Needs a lot of time, energy or skill.
Nursing is a demanding profession, both physically and emotionally.
Difficult, often emotionally; informal.
Moving to a new country was tough at first.
Has many parts, so hard to understand.
The tax system is complicated, so I pay someone to do mine.
Made of many connected parts; neutral and formal.
Climate change is a complex issue with no single solution.
Don't swap blindly: Complex is neutral; complicated suggests unnecessary difficulty.
Difficult and needs care; informal.
Parking in the city centre can be tricky.
Seems difficult and makes you nervous.
Starting university abroad seemed daunting at first.
Causes problems.
Relying on one supplier could be problematic.
Long, tiring and difficult; formal.
The journey to the village was arduous, especially in winter.
Don't swap blindly: Mainly for physical effort over time; it sounds odd with 'question' or 'exam'.
Difficult to deal with, often socially.
It's awkward when two friends ask you to take sides.
Something that needs a lot of effort.
Getting up early in winter is a real struggle for me.
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'm going to talk about learning to drive. It was more daunting than I expected, because the roads in my city are busy and parking is really tricky. The theory test was quite complex too, with lots of rules to memorise. It was a struggle for a few months, but in the end I passed on my second attempt.
Hard and tough are natural everyday words. Challenging, demanding, daunting and tricky are more precise, depending on why something is difficult.
Complex means made of many connected parts and is neutral. Complicated suggests confusing or unnecessarily difficult. A complex system can be well designed; a complicated form is annoying.
Usually it suggests a difficulty worth taking on. For something simply unpleasant, use hard, tough or demanding.
It is common in journalism but slightly informal for Task 2. Use difficult, challenging or demanding instead.
Practise
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