IELTS Energy 1455: Formal Contract Phrases for IELTS Business Topics
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This is an IELTS Energy Podcast, Episode 1455, Formal Contract Phrases for IELTS Business Topics.

Welcome to the IELTS Energy Podcast from All Ears English, downloaded more than 22 million times with former IELTS examiner Jessica Beck and Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz. If you are stuck with a low score, our insider method will help you get the score you need to unlock your dreams. Get your estimated band score now with our two-minute quiz. Go to allearsenglish.com

forward slash my score. Today, you'll learn specific and impressive vocabulary related to business and contracts that you can use on IELTS speaking and writing. Plus, you'll hear about a recent surprising writing task to question about ruthless business and shady profits. Imagine what's possible when learning doesn't get in the way of life.

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Aubrey, are you a woman who signs many contracts? I am not. I cannot remember though. Actually, I did sign a contract just yesterday to do a mystery shop at like a trampoline park.

I'm wanting to take my kids to more places like that, but it's pricey. So I started looking into ways I can do it as a mystery shopper. So then we're like spies checking everything and they pay me to go. So that's amazing. Yeah. Was there any like fine print in this contract that you just skipped reading so you could just sign it and carry forth?

I was really tempted, but then I found out there was going to be a quiz on all the fine print. So normally I would. I'm skipping all the fine print. Like when we signed to purchase a home, we didn't read a single page. You sign it, you turn the page, you sign the next one. Because there's like a thousand pages. There's no way I'm reading all of that ever.

all right guys so a couple terms we just used contract and fine print this is vocabulary related to business and even though ielts says you don't need any specialized knowledge or whatever to answer the questions um

There's still some tricky, very specific business vocabulary that I think a lot of students are missing. So today we're going to teach you some of that. And I would be impressed if as part of your speaking answers or your essays, it does come up, it's appropriate and you use some of the specific business.

vocabulary, that is impressive to an examiner because it's more rare for a student to know this type of language. Exactly, exactly. It's very high level. So Aubrey, we were inspired by today's, to make today's episode.

a comment from a Spotify listener. Yes, I'll read it. It was, "Hi, I'm Lizbeth Fosado from Mexico. Quick pause here. I love the name Lizbeth." Me too. In the States, it's often like Liz or I have a sister and she goes by Liz or Lizzie if their name is Elizabeth. But I love Lizbeth as short for that, but this is probably the full name. Either way, Lizbeth, I love your name.

And then she asked, "When should I use agreement and when should I say contract? And execute or sign? Thanks." Great questions. Awesome question. That's an awesome question. So we're going to go through each of those terms, explain them with examples, teach you a couple extra vocab phrases, and then guys, we're going to look at a recent IELTS Writing Task 2 question

about business and see if we can use these new terms in the answer to that question. So Aubrey, what is the first word to define here? Yeah, the first word is agreement. And this is quite general. This is any verbal or written thing that you and another person have agreed on. I say this really often if there's this unspoken rule of something like maybe we're playing sports

And none of us are playing that hard. And then somebody spikes it on me. I'd be like, we had an agreement. It's like, hey, we had all agreed to play at a certain level. What are you doing? Yeah, no, totally. Like, you're making me look bad. Exactly. So.

So in IELTS speaking, if you're asked about your family or about difficult conversations, right, those two topics come up a lot. You could say, my family and I have an unspoken agreement to never talk about politics.

So this entire phrase, an unspoken agreement, and Aubrey, you use something like that in your example as well. What does that even mean? When do we say that? Yeah, it means we haven't actually talked about it and said, let's agree to this. It's something that's just sort of known. It hasn't been spoken or talked about. We say, you know, we had this unspoken agreement. We all just kind of knew what the rules were without talking about it.

Yeah, totally, totally. You could also say if you're talking about work, I worked out an agreement with my coworker to help each other on certain projects so we get to use our strengths.

And then you could give examples of, you know, the projects and the strengths and skills that you use. Remember to always get specific with details and examples. But again, like agreement is just a very general term, right? So anytime you make a deal, you talk about something and you both say yes, right? That's an agreement.

Nice. And next is just the verb sign, which means to write your signature or maybe e-sign a document. So to say that you're legally promising something, this is much more likely to happen with contracts. You would rarely say like, I signed this agreement. No, now we're talking about something official that had to be signed and we would say contract.

Exactly. And that's the next vocab word, contract, right? So how is that different from an agreement? A contract is a formal agreement. It's almost always written. There can be verbal contracts, right? Sometimes in movies, I'll hear them say like a handshake agreement.

right? Which just means like we shook hands on it. So that means like it's a deal. But that usually wouldn't be referred to as a contract, right? A contract is usually written and it has some sort of legal purpose. Like you're promising to pay money or fulfill an order or expectation. And if that contract is not met or if it is broken, right, then there will be consequences.

Right. This could be super useful if you're asked on IELTS about a mistake you made. Maybe you signed an online contract without reading the fine print and you could say, oh, you have to read the fine print in online contracts so you're clear about what you're signing up for.

And let's define that phrase "fine print" real fast because this phrase has come up a lot so far, which guys, that shows you. We use this phrase a lot when we're talking about contracts and agreements and business deals and such. So what does "fine print" mean? Yeah, it usually means the smaller type, smaller size writing in a contract, especially legal contracts, there's a lot of text.

to clarify what exactly and there might be like headings and then there's all the fine print which is the details the nitty-gritty that a lot of people skip

Exactly. Most people do. It reminds me of on Netflix, there's a new, it was Black Mirror, where one of the newest ones, and it's like the Netflix agreement. And people have like, in the show, they've like signed the rights to use their face, and then sort of all of the repercussions for that. And the whole time, it's like, you should have read the fine print. Oh my gosh, that is such a good example. I love that episode. It's so good. It's so good.

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all ears english.com my score all right so one more vocab word that is very specific and then we'll uh share with you a recent writing task to question so this verb this is the last one that lizabeth asked about is execute what does execute mean yeah this means to put a contract

into action, to put the terms of a contract into action, like to carry out the agreement or contract. So this is very much legalese, like legal speak. A lawyer might say, we are executing this contract. It means they're putting it into action. Yeah. It just means like you're doing the thing the contract says. Right. Right.

Um, so here's an example, guys. If again, you're talking about business or work on aisles, you could say we signed a huge client last year. And at first my company honestly did not have the team to execute it properly. Luckily I hired two more people quickly and we were able to fulfill the order. Um, all right, so let's get into a writing task to question. Aubrey, what did you find?

So the question is, businesses should do anything they can to make a profit. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Use specific reasons and examples to support your position. What a wild question. I cannot imagine anybody saying yes to that question.

Maybe a CEO who's really cutthroat. They're like, absolutely. Cutthroat's a great adjective, guys, for someone who's willing to do anything to reach their goals, like hurt people, like lie, steal, cheat. They are cutthroat. Yeah, this is Potter on, if you've seen It's a Wonderful Life, the Christmas movie, whatever that guy's name was, his last name's Potter. He was a cutthroat. He would do anything to get what he wanted.

Exactly. All right. So if we're answering this question about businesses doing anything they can to make a profit, you could definitely use all of the vocabulary we talked about today. You could describe like dodgy business practices of putting fine print in their online agreements or contracts, requiring people to pay hidden fees. Right.

right, that they're charged with every month forever after and they don't even realize that they signed that contract. They were agreeing to all of these extra fees. Right. This happened to me where I accidentally signed up for a subscription and didn't realize it till months later there was a monthly fee because I didn't really agree. It was like when you check out, you're agreeing to this monthly subscription. I'm like, what? Super shady.

so sneaky oh so terrible um and then also like you could say how sometimes businesses do not execute their side of the agreed upon actions right and maybe you could give examples of that for example what if a company promises you know the fastest speed internet and they charge the highest prices

but in actuality, they do not execute their promises in the real world, right? The internet is slow. It goes out a lot, whatever. But regardless, you're still paying for like that premium fee. Yes. And you might need paraphrases for this. We also say breaking a contract or an agreement or not fulfilling one of those or not fulfilling a promise. So there's all these ways we say that when a company or a person doesn't do what they agreed to do.

Exactly, exactly. So Aubrey, how can students continue to prepare for topics like this about business?

Well, you definitely need to sign up for our online IELTS course, Three Keys IELTS. You learn all the strategies you need for the IELTS exam, all of the vocabulary topics, specific vocabulary, but also you need to be surrounding yourselves with English, right? Listening to podcasts, reading the news, because maybe an economic article every now and then, because a lot of this vocabulary doesn't come up if you're just reading like pop culture news.

Totally, totally. I really like the podcast, Planet Money. Planet Money is a great sort of accessible and interesting business podcast from NPR. And like Aubrey said, guys, when you open up the New York Times or the Washington Post or the Guardian, click on that business section and read a couple articles.

Yes, definitely. Awesome. We're excited for you to be ready to feel confident because if you don't have this topic specific of vocabulary, you could go in on test day, unsure that you are going to have the vocab you need for whatever questions or essay topics you might get. But if you are really immersing yourself in lots of different topics, you'll feel confident. You'll feel ready. Totally. Totally. All right, guys. Thank you so much for joining us today. Make sure to hit follow so you never miss an episode and we'll be back on Friday. Bye.

Awesome. See you Friday. Bye. Thanks for listening to IELTS Energy. Hit subscribe now and don't forget to find your estimated band score at allearsenglish.com slash my score. What you're hearing is Hardy Fiber Cement Siding living up to its reputation as the siding that handles hail impact with ease.

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