· 19 lists · 667 words

Knowledge and evidence

How someone knows what they claim.

What holds these lists together

These lists are not about a subject but about a question: how certain is a statement? A source, a sample and a memory are three kinds of evidence, and each has its own words for «we do not know exactly»: a conjetura, a margem de erro, o enviesamento. Portuguese adds a grammatical signal English lacks. Where a British paper writes «the suspect reportedly fled», a Portuguese one uses the future perfect — o suspeito terá fugido — and the tense alone marks the claim as unconfirmed. A reader who takes it for a future misreads the news; one who overlooks it reads a guess as a fact.

The 19 lists

B2Psychology and learningPerception, memory, motivation, habit — the words for talking about your own thinking.50 words B2History and sourcesSource, testimony, dating, interpretation — the words for talking about the past without inventing it.50 words B2Statistics and figuresShare, mean, sample, spread — the words without which a figure standing in a text cannot be placed.50 words C1University and researchFrom enrolment to the oral defence.45 words C1Continuing professional trainingCourses, funding, qualifications — and who recognises them at the end.34 words C1Astronomy and spaceflightFrom the constellation to re-entry.40 words C2The book and the libraryManuscript, edition, shelfmark — books as objects and as holdings.38 words C2AstrophysicsLight, distance, mass — what can be worked out from what arrives.41 words C2Family history researchHow to find a person nobody remembers any more.27 words C2Archaeology and excavationTrench, layer, dating — and what a single find can actually prove.33 words C2The history of technologyWhy the best solution is not the one that wins.32 words C2Archives and recordsWhat is kept, and why that is a decision.21 words C2LibrarianshipOrdering, describing and keeping things within reach.21 words C2DendrochronologyA tree, read as a calendar.31 words C2ThermodynamicsHeat, work, entropy — and why it does not run backwards.36 words C2CatalysisHow to speed a reaction up without using it up.25 words C2Genetics and inheritanceFrom the base to the population — and what a finding actually says.43 words C2PalaeographyReading old handwriting, and knowing when it was written.25 words C2Science communicationHow a result finds its way out of the field.25 words

Spread across the levels

The category runs across the levels — it is an area, not a difficulty. If you practise it, you can also choose a level at the top of the practice page and then get only the part that sits there.

Level	Words	Share
B2	152	23 %
C1	119	18 %
C2	396	59 %

Practise this category

Multiple choice and gaps, across all 19 lists and all 667 words. Whatever you get wrong comes back tomorrow.