symptoms

IELTS use

Commonly used in reading passages about diseases, diagnosis, and patient descriptions.

Examples

1. The patient reported flu-like symptoms including fever and cough.
2. Early symptoms of the disease are often difficult to detect.
3. Knowing the symptoms can help people seek treatment sooner.

Collocations

common symptoms

Headache and fatigue are common symptoms of the virus.

initial symptoms

The initial symptoms appeared within days of infection.

symptoms include

Symptoms include sore throat and runny nose.

experience symptoms

Many patients experience mild symptoms only.

Word family

Noun

symptom

Adjective

symptomatic

Paraphrases

• signs of illness: Less formal, but acceptable in IELTS reading contexts.
• indicators of disease: More formal, used in scientific texts.
• clinical manifestations: Very formal, often in medical reading passages.

Common mistakes

• He has symptom of fever. to He has symptoms of fever.. Symptom is usually plural when referring to multiple signs.
• The symptom is common for this illness. to The symptoms are common for this illness.. Use plural unless referring to one specific symptom.
• I have some symptom. to I have some symptoms.. Use plural after 'some'.