To utilise, employ and use can be used completely interchangeably; apply is a bit different, like it just doesn't quite sound right to say, 'the author applies inclusive language to create a sense of…'. I can’t quite explain why, it’s just that apply =/= use.
Presume and assume can be used interchangeably, but postulate is a bit different - it means more to present a new idea or suggestion – to pose, suggest, present.
Latter/former lends itself to complex, confusing and cumbersome sentence structures. Avoid it, in general - especially you personally, because you have a bit of an issue with big long tangled unwieldy sentences. And unless you're really comfortable with it (I am coz it's used commonly in the books I tend to read, older ones like Dickens) you really risk making mistakes.
No clue what doubled up auxiliary verbs are. Google ‘em
Anyway, it's often just about what 'feels' right (though that's based on grammatical reasons generally). Try this example that you'll easily get: 'mention' and 'refer'. 'The author mentions Jim Carey' sounds right; 'The author refers Jim Carey' you just know is wrong (I hope
). You
know that you have to put a 'to' in there - refers to - because you've absorbed it. But if you just learnt it off a list of synonyms, how would you know that they need to be used slightly differently? Or, 'suggest' (in some senses) = 'present'. 'The author suggests that...' - fine, 'The author presents that...' - wrong. You need 'the idea that...' or something for it to make grammatical sense. This is why assessors often encourage people to stick to ‘small’ words they're comfortable with, because nothing grates more than a ‘big’ word crammed in incorrectly where it doesn't fit.
So. You honestly can't sit and learn a list of what words to use exactly where, and how exactly they fit into the structure.
Never learn a new word from a vocab list without trying to find some examples of where it's used in proper sentences. Read over a number of different sentences a number of times, you gradually get used to the 'feel' of words, exactly how they're used, and exactly how they make sense in a sentence. This is why wide reading for the sake of it gets you a long way
... oh and thanks thaaanyan, encouraging