phrasal verb · academic
get to grips with
/ɡet tə ˈɡrɪps wɪð/get·to·GRIPS·with
begin to understand and deal effectively with a difficult problem or task
Examples
“The company needs time to get to grips with the new regulations before implementing them.”
“I had to get to grips with statistical software for my research project.”
“Policy makers are still getting to grips with how to reduce air pollution in megacities.”
Band 8 sentence
“To design effective interventions, researchers first need to get to grips with the structural causes of poverty rather than focusing only on symptoms.”
Collocations
- get to grips with an issue
- get to grips with a system/software
Word family
Common mistakes
get grips with→get to grips with
get grip of→get to grips with
to get to grips→to get to grips with
Say it for a higher band
5understand→6deal with→7+get to grips with
Synonyms
tackle
come to terms with
Easily confused
get used to
“After a month in London, she was getting used to the cold weather.”
get a handle on
“It took him a while to get a handle on the new accounting system.”
Related words
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In get …
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