Answer Short Question: building quick-recall vocabulary

You know what a baby dog is called. Yet when the question arrives, your mind goes blank and out comes "um... a small... dog". Answer Short Question is rarely a knowledge problem: it is a retrieval problem, which is a matter of how fast you can find an English word you already own.

What the task wants

You hear one short question, once, and answer with a word or a few words. The answer is marked right or wrong, and a right answer needs nothing but the word. So:

• Answer at once. Start within about a second of the question ending, and do not wait for the perfect word.
• Do not repeat the question. "A baby dog is called a puppy" gives you more chances to stumble than "puppy".
• Do not explain, and do not add "I think". Say the word with confidence.
• If you did not hear the question well, guess. A wrong answer scores the same as silence, so a guess costs nothing. Use whatever you caught: if all you heard was "...an animal with a very long neck", say "giraffe".

A question may also offer a choice ("Which is colder, ice or steam?") or ask for an opposite ("What is the opposite of expensive?"). The same rule applies: the shortest correct answer wins.

Build recall by topic

The questions come from everyday life and general knowledge, so train words in families. Take one topic a day and say ten words aloud in one minute, with no notes. Eight topics to start with:

• Animals: baby animals (puppy, kitten, calf), homes (nest, den, hive)
• The body: heart, lungs, skull, stomach, muscles, the five senses
• Time and calendar: months, seasons, leap year, decade, century, fortnight
• Shapes: triangle, square, rectangle, circle, oval, cube
• Tools: hammer, saw, screwdriver, spanner, drill, scissors
• Geography: continents, oceans, desert, island, compass directions
• Basic science: oxygen, gravity, magnet, thermometer, freezing, boiling
• Everyday objects: fridge, kettle, umbrella, wallet, mirror, envelope

Then turn each word into a question, such as "What do we call frozen water?" Questions and answers together are what you will actually meet. Another quick exercise is to look around the room and name twenty objects aloud in a minute: going from picture to word is the fastest route.

A 15-question self-quiz

All fifteen questions are original, with one clear answer each. Ask a friend to read them to you, or record yourself reading them and play the recording a day later. Answer aloud in one or two words, within two seconds.

1. What do you call a baby dog?
2. What do bees make that people spread on toast?
3. Which part of the body pumps blood around the body?
4. What is the bone that protects your brain called?
5. Which month comes after August?
6. How many minutes are there in two hours?
7. What shape has three sides?
8. Which tool do you use to hit a nail into wood?
9. Which tool has two blades joined in the middle and cuts paper?
10. What is the largest ocean on Earth?
11. Which continent is Kenya in?
12. What do we call water when it is frozen?
13. Which gas do people need to breathe to stay alive?
14. What do you open to keep dry in the rain?
15. Which kitchen appliance keeps your milk cool?

Count a miss for any answer that took longer than two seconds, even if it was right. Slow correct answers are the ones that tend to disappear under test pressure. Look at which topics your misses came from, and those are your lists for this week.

Practise it today

1. Pick the topic where you hesitated most in the quiz.
2. Write ten words for it and say them aloud against a one-minute timer.
3. Write one question for each word, then answer your own questions quickly, out loud.
4. Tomorrow, take a different topic, and come back to this one at the weekend.

A steady vocabulary habit helps this task and every other, so see a vocabulary routine that fits into twenty minutes. When you want to try the task against a timer, use the practice tests on this site.