Take stock means to assess the situation and review where you are. A person stops and takes an honest look at what has been done, what has worked and what hasn't, so they can decide what to do next. Literally, it means counting the goods in a shop or warehouse, and the image helps you remember the meaning. The expression is neutral and sounds good in an IELTS essay.
When would you say take stock?
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take stock (of + noun); stop/pause to take stock
- After my first year at university, I took stock of what was working and what wasn't.
- Let's take stock of the budget before we promise the client anything else.
- When the storm finally passed, the villagers came out to take stock of the damage.
What changed
First versionIt's time to take a stock of our progress.
RevisionIt's time to take stock of our progress.
Take is often followed by an article: take a break, take a look. But in this idiom stock has no article, as in take place or take part. The correction only removes the extra a.
Take stock means stopping to assess where you are so you can decide what to do next. To sum up simply repeats briefly what has been said, without assessing it: To sum up, we agreed on three changes. So take stock fits in the middle of a piece of work, and to sum up at the end of a text or talk.
Your turn
After six months of learning Spanish, Olga decided to ___: she listed the topics she knew well and the ones she kept forgetting.
Show the answer
take stock — After the colon, the sentence describes what Olga did: she worked out which topics she knew well and which she kept forgetting. That's taking stock, assessing her progress. Take a break means “stop for a rest”, whereas Olga sat down to review what she knew.
Look back at your study or work over the last month and assess how it went. Name one thing that went well and one thing you want to change.
Taking stock of the last month, I can see that my listening has improved, but I want to spend more time on writing.
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