Practice the key verb+noun collocations used when discussing, tracking, and prioritising technical debt in engineering teams in English.
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1 / 5
Fill in: 'Moving fast without writing tests means we ___ significant technical debt.'
We 'accumulate technical debt' — 'accumulate' is the standard metaphor collocation, treating debt as something that grows passively over time. 'Build up' is close but more informal; 'create debt' is intentional-sounding; 'take on debt' implies a deliberate decision rather than gradual growth.
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Fill in: 'We dedicate 20% of each sprint to ___ down technical debt incrementally.'
We 'pay down debt' — 'pay down' is the financial metaphor collocation, treating technical debt like a loan to be reduced over time. 'Work down' is not a standard phrase; 'cut debt' sounds abrupt; 'knock down' is informal and does not carry the financial metaphor.
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Fill in: 'We use a shared Jira board to ___ debt items so nothing gets forgotten.'
We 'track debt items' — 'track' is the operational collocation for maintaining ongoing visibility of technical debt entries. 'List' implies a static inventory; 'log' suggests initial entry; 'record' is more formal and archival.
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Fill in: 'The architecture committee will help us ___ refactoring work against new feature development.'
We 'prioritize refactoring' — 'prioritize' is the product management collocation for determining the relative importance of refactoring in the backlog. 'Balance' implies a trade-off process; 'weigh' is informal; 'rank' implies ordering without the decision-making nuance.
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Fill in: 'Before the board approves time for refactoring, we need to ___ the cost of the debt to the business.'
We 'quantify the cost' — 'quantify' is the business-facing collocation for assigning a numeric or business value to technical debt. 'Calculate' is mathematical; 'measure' is about metrics; 'show' is too informal for a board presentation.