ABSTRACT It is generally accepted that illustrative examples are useful in dictionaries, particularly school and learner's dictionaries. As the private preparatory learners are being taught in English, which is not their home language, so a monolingtta/ school dictionary is used as a tearner's dictionary, and a bilingual school dictionary did not contain any of the illustrative examples. This research aims to find out the deeds of the private preparatory learners for illustrative examples on the Oxford Advanced Leaerners' , Dictionary. The data was 'cbllected from the three private preparatory schools of Bahir Bar town. The total population of the study are 320 and the number of the sample taken with accidental sampling method in this study are 100 students. The result of the learner questionnaires is that learners want the OALD to contain asrmany illustrative examples as possiblebut not to the most extreme and minority of the learners need the OALD not to supply the definitions with many illustrative examples. And they do " actively look for support for the definition in examples, especially if the headword is difficult to them, or tney do not understand the definition. Finally students do not worry about the types of examples to be included in the OALD. The conclusion of this thesis is that examples are an important part of a dictionary ent~y and learners need to be trained on how and when to use illus;rative examples ,lexicograp0ers should consider the different categories of learners who do have different needs for OALD exemplification. And for the two types of learners (learners who want more of sentences examples and learners who want 111ore of phrasal examples) two types of dictionaries should be prepared.