verb · academic
isolate
UK/ˈaɪsəleɪt/US/ˈaɪsəˌleɪt/I·so·late
Band 6-7task1task2speaking
to separate something/someone from others or to set apart for study
Examples
“Researchers isolated the variable to test its effect on results.”
“During the outbreak, infected individuals were isolated to prevent spread.”
“It is difficult to isolate the impact of advertising from other factors.”
Band 8 sentence
“To determine causality, the researchers isolated the independent variable and controlled for confounding factors.”
Collocations
- isolate + variable/factor/virus
- be isolated from
Word family
isolation nounisolated adjective
Common mistakes
use "separate" for all cases→isolate
"isolate to" instead of "isolate from"→isolate from
Say it for a higher band
5separate→6isolate→7+isolate
Synonyms
separate
segregate
Easily confused
separate
“They decided to separate the two groups.”
Related words
Learn this word with the rest of its set, and get reminded at the right time.
In Sublist 6
Learn it with its set