<p>there's one version with 3500 words and another with like 4800 words. how important is it to know those 1,300 additional words??</p>
<p>Not at all, really. The elimination tricks and knowing prefixes/suffixes helped me much more than the 500 words I learned (none showed up on the test). I did talk with people who had 3 or 4 show up, so I guess it just depends. I would recommend focusing more on how to solve the questions than learning 5K words. That is way too many.</p>
<p>Also, on the new GRE test effective on the 1st August 2011, you won’t have those comparison, synonyms and antonyms sections any more. Thus, you probably don’t need to memorize words as hard as you are given more context in sentence completion or reading comprehension type questions.</p>
<p>I’m surprised that they didn’t remove the word comparison/analogy sections last year to correspond with the first graduating class that didn’t have those on the SAT. </p>
<p>Memorizing words might help a little, but as MaceVindaloo says, few, if any, of those words show up on the GRE. Of course, if you knew 4800 more words than you do now, you’d probably get a better score, so in that respect, word lists aren’t a bad idea.</p>
<p>The problem with memorizing words is latter confusing their meanings or not truly understanding their usage. The best way to improve your score is to read a lot of scholarly papers and understand what you’re reading. Learn some common roots and suffixes. Nail down meanings of words you “sort of” know. If the test changes in time for you, then you may have context to help you. As the test stands now, the words are floating there in a vacuum, with no help from surrounding words. This mean that you either must know them thoroughly or have a great guess.</p>
<p>i dont know. it seems like a pretty extensive list of the most conventionally used ‘big’ words in the english language…whenever i’m watching a tv show and hear a word that idont know, when i check the 3500 list, i find the word on there. Its almost like a mini dictionary with every word that i will ever need to know. so i’m not sure i agree that its a waste of time. I really need to ace the GRE because my GPA is liek a 3.3.</p>
<p>i’m using the online flashcards which provide the meaning(s) of the word and alsa examples of how the word is used in sentences</p>
<p>[BARRON'S</a> 3500 WORD LIST 48 flashcards | Quizlet](<a href=“http://quizlet.com/827881/barrons-3500-word-list-48-flash-cards/]BARRON’S”>http://quizlet.com/827881/barrons-3500-word-list-48-flash-cards/)</p>
<p>you still think its a waste of time? ugh i dont know…i’ll probably just go with my gut…theres just too much dissension among test takers regarding the usefulness of the list</p>
<p>‘racnna’ is so damn right.</p>
<p>These words in a strange way are just the words I don’t get reading high-level stuff like film reviews by Roger Ebert, a professional writer.</p>
<p>It’s either professional writers have memorized these same lists too! or there’s a scientific statistical study behind the words included in these lists.</p>
<p>Either way if you really like to live, work and study in US, memorizing them by no means is stupid, in my humble opinion, maybe just a little too esoteric!</p>
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<p>Another important thing, since I am currently prepping for verbal:</p>
<p>“The Big Book” (collection of 27 full GRE-PBT real tests around 1990) in an amazing fashion has only the words covered in Barron’s 3500. Probably every SINGLE word! I get stuck with in one of these real tests is there.</p>
<p>My pals who took the new tests say results you get from doing Big Book are in complete agreement with your scores.</p>
<p>f*** if I know!</p>
<p>I attempted to memorize all 3500 words on the word list over the summer. I ended up memorizing around 3000 of them, maybe a little more. It’s not really worth it. The book also has a list of 300 “high-frequency” words in the front-those are the ones you should try to remember. They really do come up all the time, test after test. I found that it’s not so much that there are lots of obscure words on the test, it’s more that the definitions you learned don’t directly coincide with what’s given so it’s harder.</p>