verb · neutral

prioritize

UK/praɪˈɒrɪtaɪz/US/praɪˈɔːrɪˌtaɪz/pri·OR·i·tize

Band 5-6speakingtask2

to arrange or deal with things in order of importance

Examples

“When you're busy, it's important to prioritize your tasks.”

“The government prioritized health care in the new budget.”

“Students need to prioritize revision before exams.”

Band 8 sentence

“Faced with limited time, I prioritize tasks that will most improve my exam score.”

Collocations

  • prioritize tasks
  • give priority to
  • prioritize health/education

Word family

prioritize verbprioritizes/prioritized/prioritizing verb formspriority nounprioritization noun

Common mistakes

We need to prioritize the tasks yesterday.→We needed to prioritize the tasks yesterday.

He give priority tasks to easier ones.→He gives priority to the more important tasks.

Say it for a higher band

5prefer→6focus on→7+prioritize

Synonyms

focus on

rank

Easily confused

focus on

“We should focus on studying the main topics first.”

Related words

analyzeorganizerealizerecognizesocializesummarizeemphasizememorize

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