Rewrite the action as a noun
Heavy investment in rail transformed the network within a decade.
The sharp rise in fuel prices last winter hit rural households hardest.Each item gives you two sentences. The first states an action using a verb; the second says the same thing again but needs that action as a noun, and the noun is missing. Write only the missing noun, and build it from the verb in the first sentence rather than choosing a word that merely means something similar. This compression is what lifts the register of an exam essay - but it also buries the person doing the acting, so reach for it deliberately rather than everywhere.
1. The committee decided quickly. Its quick ___ surprised everyone.
2. The city has grown steadily since 2010. That steady ___ has put real pressure on housing.
3. The first trial failed. The ___ of the first trial delayed the project by a year.
4. The board refused to fund the pilot. The board's ___ to fund the pilot ended the discussion.
5. The company expanded into Asia last year. Its ___ into Asia has already changed the balance of its revenue.Show the answers
1. decision
2. growth
3. failure
4. refusal
5. expansionItems 1 and 4 both add an ending to the verb and both stand behind a possessive, which is the neatest compromise available: the sentence compresses, but the reader can still see who acted. Item 2 adds a single consonant rather than a whole syllable, and because the result looks so unlike a typical noun of this kind, learners often abandon it and reach for a longer synonym instead. Items 3 and 5 take two endings that recur constantly in academic writing, and the second of them shifts a consonant in the stem as it goes. Compare the two sentences in each item and watch what happens to the information: the second version is shorter, denser and more formal, but the agent can vanish completely. Examiners reward the compression and penalise the fog, so keep at least one visible agent in every paragraph.