I'm preparing for the GRE and I don't know how to memorize/learn 3500 words !

[roni]

I bought Barron's Book, Princeton Book and Kaplan 500 flash cards.

Barron's has 3500 words, Princeton has approx 500 words(?) and Kaplan has 500 flash cards.
3500 looks WAY TOO MUCH... I don't know how it's possible to study approx 2700 words ( I figured that I'll know approx 800-1000 words from the list).

I thought maybe I should study Kaplan flash cards and combine it with Princeton's words (will probably have 800 words)...

What do you say ??
I figured that if I study 10-15 words a day, it will take me 8-10 months to study Barron's word list ( OMG)...

even though I am planning on taking the exam in May-Sept 2010, it's still too much for studying vocabulary


Thanks,
Roni.

 

[kwlmy]

Just google, you'll find plenty of techniques.

 

[Aditya Chitral]

Keep reading and start using them in your colloquial language.

 

[bluechimp]

Dude, I don't want to be friends with someone who uses GRE words in his daily speech.

 

[bigbadwolf]

Memorising the words in isolation is senseless -- even if you could do it. Start a subscription to something like the London Review of Books. Try to get hold of some books by Theodor Adorno. And try to consort more with educated Englishmen (keeping in mind that Americans, even if they have advanced degrees, tend to have poor command of written and spoken English). In fact, limit your interaction with Americans as you won't progress beyond rudimentary English ("yeah,""wow," "awesome," "great," "cool," etc.).

 

[Andy Nguyen]

I remember reading somewhere that Asian students, specially Chinese, have some cramming method that would yield the verbal score in the high 500 or 600 but do little to boost their overall English skill. If you pick up a paper there, you can easily find ads boasting of courses that can improve the verbal score by 100 in a short time. I wonder how they do that.

 

[Aditya Chitral]

Dude, I don't want to be friends with someone who uses GRE words in his daily speech.

"Dude", then you are not going to learn it. And I think that is the motive behind those 3500 words. "To have a tool set which helps you better express yourself". In any case, atleast being in a group preparing for GRE and using those words is far better than being around someone posting verbose posts.

---------- Post added at 11:37 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:28 AM ----------

Memorising the words in isolation is senseless -- even if you could do it. Start a subscription to something like the London Review of Books. Try to get hold of some books by Theodor Adorno.

"Wow", what an "awesome" idea. Thanks, cool. To learn more about Theodor Adorno visit
wiki

And try to consort more with educated Englishmen (keeping in mind that Americans, even if they have advanced degrees, tend to have poor command of written and spoken English).

"yeah" "cool", but how do I come across so many Americans using almost 3000 of those 3500 words.

]In fact, limit your interaction with Americans as you won't progress beyond rudimentary English ("yeah,""wow," "awesome," "great," "cool," etc.).

"sounds awesome", you know what, I want to go to US but I need to limit my interaction with Americans and not learn how they interact. Again, what an "awesome" idea.

p.s. Damn, I missed using "great"

 

[bluechimp]

Seriously, if you start speaking GRE words in the workplace (or anywhere else), you'd sound like a f***ing tool. Bloody hell, actually try pulling that on any trading floor and see if they like it.

Also, not all Americans are speak in a manner bigbadwolf described. I have no idea what type of folks you hang out with, BBW.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Outside of taking the exam, I wonder if majority of these 3500 word list is ever used in daily communication. I can understand a majority of printed material without a need for an Oxford dictionary but I must confess that I barely understand any of the strange, exotic vocabularies that bbw uses on Quantnet.
I think I need to subscribe to the London Review of Books pronto.

 

[Sanket Patel]

If you're BigBadWold, then yes. :D

Outside of taking the exam, I wonder if majority of these 3500 word list is ever used in daily communication

 

[roni]

Just google, you'll find plenty of techniques.

I googled and didn't find any good methods...actually I didn't find any real method except this website:
Win Over Words: Wow!, GRE Picture Dictionary,

I don't know if it's worth the money, Rs 2250 (how much is this in USDs ?)

Do you have any good technique ?

 

[atreides]

Memorising the words in isolation is senseless -- even if you could do it. Start a subscription to something like the London Review of Books. Try to get hold of some books by Theodor Adorno. And try to consort more with educated Englishmen (keeping in mind that Americans, even if they have advanced degrees, tend to have poor command of written and spoken English). In fact, limit your interaction with Americans as you won't progress beyond rudimentary English ("yeah,""wow," "awesome," "great," "cool," etc.).

I guess there's a reason they call it the Queen's language. Shouldn't the goal of the language be to communicate ideas across and not bamboozle with strange and exotic vocabularies???


Roni, you might also try this book Amazon.com: Words for Smart Test Takers 2nd Edition (Academic Test Preparation Series) (9780768907155): Arco: Books . I found this extremely helpful. The book is small, but it delivers very high impact on your score and has less time to value.

 

[roni]

I guess there's a reason they call it the Queen's language. Shouldn't the goal of the language be to communicate ideas across and not bamboozle with strange and exotic vocabularies???


Roni, you might also try this book Amazon.com: Words for Smart Test Takers 2nd Edition (Academic Test Preparation Series) (9780768907155): Arco: Books . I found this extremely helpful. The book is small, but it delivers very high impact on your score and has less time to value.

it looks like a good book...

how many words does it have ?
did you take the GRE already?
what did you score ?

 

[atreides]

it looks like a good book...

how many words does it have ?
did you take the GRE already?
what did you score ?

It has about 800 - 1000 words, there is a section on SAT words too, which you can ignore. It helped me raise my verbal score 250 points to sub - 700s , my second time around.

 

[roni]

It has about 800 - 1000 words, there is a section on SAT words too, which you can ignore. It helped me raise my verbal score 250 points to sub - 700s , my second time around.

wow, that's great ! I'll buy the book. Will memorize, Kaplan, Princeton and the one you are suggesting (will have approx 1500 words )

Thank you

 

[Aditya Chitral]

wow, that's great ! I'll buy the book. Will memorize, Kaplan, Princeton and the one you are suggesting (will have approx 1500 words )

Thank you

BEWARE !! A wolf might come and attack you !! Did you not read the sign which was kept out of the cage, "Don't use words like wow and great."

Rs 2250 (how much is this in USDs ?)

Well, this way you are never going to reach 800 in quant section.

 

[alain]

Most of the weird words or strange vocabulary you talk about usually comes from Latin. I found those extremely easy to learn since they are closer to words coming from Romance languages (my native tongue is spanish).

 

[Andy Nguyen]

All the joking aside, let give credit where it's due. We have to admit that the bigbadwolf has an impressive command on the Queen's language and he has read extensively.
I don't know how he gained such a vast knowledge but it's probably a mix of being an Englishman, reading the right publication for a long time, a love for the language, etc.

That said, the question being asked here is how the OP can cram 3000+ rarely used words in a short time to boost his GRE score. You can't reach the wolf's level by memorizing, cramming a few months. I don't know how long it took wolf but I'm betting decades.

To cram is to memorize and forget. When the exam is over, the OP is lucky to still remember 100 words that he can put to daily use. I have close to 5000 posts here and if you run a dictionary check on my posts, they will only contain less than 200 common words, if that (it probably contains all the "wow", "great", "awesome", "yeah" that wolf has blacklisted). So I guess the OP can insert a few new vocabularies in his posts on Quantnet every single day till the exam. It's not an easy task if you ask me.

 

[byongsoo]

hey roni. just finished my gre and got 1600. i think what helped me with me most on my verbal was using flash cards. also i have barron's book. but found the vocab list too much. focus on the words that are starred. as you are doing practice exams, you should always make more vocabs cards. when you do this, you will start to see pattern of which ones are the important ones. i think i ended up memorizing maybe 1000. could've been more, but not too much more. flash cards are good cuz u can carry around everywhere. haha. every. where. -_- good luck memorizing!

 

[roni]

hey roni. just finished my gre and got 1600. i think what helped me with me most on my verbal was using flash cards. also i have barron's book. but found the vocab list too much. focus on the words that are starred. as you are doing practice exams, you should always make more vocabs cards. when you do this, you will start to see pattern of which ones are the important ones. i think i ended up memorizing maybe 1000. could've been more, but not too much more. flash cards are good cuz u can carry around everywhere. haha. every. where. -_- good luck memorizing!

WOW , you actually aced the exam ??? O_O good job

and

I got 500 flash cards (Kaplan's flash cards)
Did you prepare your flash cards yourself ?

and I am not sure where you got your words from, from the practice exams or Barron's word list ?

Actually, I don't want to start doing the practice exams before I learn some words (say 300 words)...

Thank you,
Roni.