idiom · neutral
back to the drawing board
UK/bæk tuː ðə ˈdrɔːɪŋ bɔːd/US/bæk tuː ðə ˈdrɔːɪŋ bɔrd/back·to·the·DRAW·ing·board
to have to start an idea, plan, or project again because the first attempt failed
Examples
“When the client rejected the proposal, it was back to the drawing board.”
“The prototype didn't work, so it's back to the drawing board for the engineers.”
“After the tests failed, the research team went back to the drawing board.”
Band 8 sentence
“When the pilot study produced poor results, the researchers had to go back to the drawing board and redesign the experiment.”
Collocations
- go back to the drawing board
- be back to the drawing board
Word family
Common mistakes
back to drawing board→back to the drawing board
go back to the draw board→go back to the drawing board
Say it for a higher band
5try again→6start from scratch→7+back to the drawing board
Synonyms
start from scratch
Easily confused
start from scratch
“After the software failed, the team had to start from scratch.”
Related words
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