v · formal
justify
/ˈdʒʌstɪfaɪ/JUS·ti·fy
Band 6-7task2speakingtask1
to show or prove that something is right, reasonable, or necessary
Examples
“You need to justify your choice of methodology in the Methods section.”
“It's hard to justify spending public money on such a small project.”
“Can you justify why this data was excluded from the analysis?”
Band 8 sentence
“In the discussion section, she justified the exclusion of outliers by referring to clearly stated criteria.”
Collocations
- justify (something)
- justify the decision
- justify the use of
Word family
justification njustifiable adj
Common mistakes
prove→justify
Say it for a higher band
5prove→6explain→7+justify
Synonyms
explain
Easily confused
justify vs prove
“It is difficult to prove that the policy reduced unemployment, but the government can justify its decision by showing partial evidence.”
Related words
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