Best SAT Vocab Book

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
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<p>DH is great. If you feel insecure after studying DH, you can buy 300 Essential Words. They are both great books.</p>

<p>On a side note, I took the Dec SAT (although I ended up canceling it), and I didn’t have trouble with any SC questions. Perhaps this was because the vocabulary list was relatively easy to guess (tendencious -> tendency). In addition, process of elimination facilitated solving the vocabulary questions. I just bought 300 Essential Words, and this seems like a great book. I would recommend this to anyone who might be a little short on time. Little under 500 words on DH vs. 300 words.</p>

<p>One more note to OP: I don’t think DH has 670 words. Last time I checked, it was little short of 500 words. Can you check that? Also, may I ask how you came across 300 Essential Words? Amazon says that this was only published less than a week ago… (December 22, 2011)</p>

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<p>DH doesn’t have 670 words, some words are used in both volumes like the word coin.</p>

<p>And OP, I’m not sure how you came up with 9 hits for DH, I can only find 7 hits, 6 hits from Volume 1. And Volume 1 has around 380 words (not exactly correct). Now if I considered anomaly and ambiguous to be hits then DH Volume 1 would have 8 out of 380, or 1 hit for 47.5 words. And since all 8 are among the 200 bold words in Volume I then this would be 1 hit out of 25 words.</p>

<p>This is all a conjecture, but one can conclude DH 2011 edition is still a good vocab book.</p>

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<p>you forgot magnanimous. that’s one of the most frequently tested words.</p>

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<p>For the number of words in DH, I used the index of each volume
Vol 1 - 378 words
Vol 2 - 352 words. This is a total of 730 words. However, there was overlap like Techexium says. I took out the 60 overlap words to get 670 words. Again, this is the second edition and not the 2011 edition.</p>

<p>I found the Essential list as I was looking for sources for this thread. I used DH before and searched the author because he is easy to read and a consensus winner on these threads</p>

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<p>How much overlap is there between Direct Hits and 300 Essential Words?</p>

<p>–</p>

<p>And I think I might already have 150 of Larry’s 300 words. Larry was giving out 150 word PDFs to promote his Insider Test Prep website, and I printed out his PDF. </p>

<p>I know I have the PDF somewhere, but it’ll take some searching :D.</p>

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<p>I’ll write the list up when I have time… :slight_smile:
There are definitely many overlaps.</p>

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<p>I got the Essential 300 and it’s really helpful. It’s less than $10 and has way more hits than any of the other books. Plus the examples are solid. It’s definitely worth getting.</p>

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<p>I tried DH, Princeton Review, and The Essential 300 and I think the Essential 300 was a lot more helpful than the other two. They’re all good books, but I’d go with the Essential 300 first</p>

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<p>You forgot the Powerscore list. They had 17 of them and they are free on their website.</p>

<p>How is drab a vocabulary word? Really?</p>

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<p>Which Vocabulary book/list performed best on the November 2011
International SAT?</p>

<p>I have seen the Dark Knight and JefferyJung’s posts about “which list performed best” on different tests. I found them interesting and compiled a list on the December 2011 SAT. Here is a comparison for the November 2011
International SAT. Based upon CC posts and reports from really good students I came up with a list of 20 consensus vocabulary words. Here they are:</p>

<p>Conjecture, Connotation, Conundrum, Diffidence, Elusive, Enigma, Flourish, Indigenous, Inquisition, Meticulous, Overwrought, Plausible, Pristine, Pulverize, Quixotic, Skeptical, Unaffected, Unconventional, Understatement, and Vituperation.</p>

<p>I then compared this list of answers to the leading vocabulary books, eBooks, and free online lists to see which performed best. Here is what I found:</p>

<ol>
<li> The Essential 300 Words: 341 words (based upon the index); 17 hits; One
hit per 20.05 words. eBook only</li>
<li> Direct Hits 3rd edition: 670 words (based upon the index); 15 hits; One hit
per 44.6 words. Paperback and eBook</li>
<li> VocabVideos: 500 words; 10 hits; One hit per 50 words. Free online list.</li>
<li> Princeton Review: 250 words; 5 hits; One hit per 50 words. Inside PR’s
Cracking the SAT</li>
<li> Hot Words 4th edition: 402 words; 5 hits; One hit per 80.4 words.
Paperback and eBook</li>
<li> Barron’s High Frequency and Hot Prospect Words: 540 words; 6 hits; One
hit per 90 words. Inside Barron’s SAT book</li>
<li> College Board Blue Book: 669 words compiled by MajorTests.com; 7 hits;
One hit per 95.5 words. Free online list.</li>
<li> MajorTests.com: 1000 words; 10 hits; One hit per 100 words; Free online
list</li>
<li> SparkNotes: 1000 words; 10 hits; One hit per 100 words; Free online list</li>
<li>Kaplan’s Score Raising Dictionary: 1000 Words; 7 hits; One hit per 142.2
words. Paperback book</li>
<li>Sesamewords: 450 Top Frequency Words; 3 hits; One hit per 150 words;
Free online list</li>
<li>Word Smart: 1505 words; 7 hits; one hit per 215 words; Paperback book</li>
</ol>

<p>None of the lists had Pulverize or Connotation. Essential was the only one that had Understatement. The Blue Book words continued to underperform.</p>

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<p>Wow! How does Larry Krieger do it … one-upping his old book …</p>

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<p>Thanks, this really helps. I’m surprised the BB didn’t do better. What were the BB vocab hits?</p>

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<p>The BB November International hits were - Diffidence, Elusive, Enigma, Indigenous,
Meticulous, Quixotic, and Skeptical</p>

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<p>I have seen the Dark Knight and JefferyJung’s posts about “which list performed best” on different tests. I found them interesting and compiled lists for the December 2011 US and International SATs and the November 5 2011 International SAT. Several CCers have asked me to do a list for the November 19, 2011 International SAT. Based upon my findings in the CC archive I came up with a list of 17 consensus vocabulary words that were answers. Here they are:</p>

<p>Acrimonious, Anomalies, Arrest, Bias, Baleful, Confound, Eclectic, Feasible, Fundamental, Inflame, Incongruous, Miscellany, Mollify, Posthumous, Proliferation, Quiescent, Unnerved</p>

<p>I then compared this list of answers to the leading vocabulary books, eBooks, and free online lists to see which performed best. Here is what I found:</p>

<ol>
<li> The Essential 300 Words: 341 words (based upon the index); 14 hits; one
hit per 24.3 words; eBook only</li>
<li> Direct Hits 4th edition: 568 words (based upon boldface words in the Fast
Review); 10 hits; one hit per 56.8 words; book only</li>
<li> Barron’s High Frequency and Hot Prospect Words: 540 words; 9 hits, one
hit per 60 words; book only</li>
<li> Princeton Review Hit Parade: 250 words; 4 hits; one hit per 62.5 words;
book only</li>
<li> Hot Words: 402 words (based upon the index); 4 hits; one hit per
100.5 words; book and eBook</li>
<li> Kaplan’s Score Raising Dictionary: 1000 words, 8 hits; one hit per 125
words; book only</li>
<li> SparkNotes: 1000 words, 6 hits; one hit per 166.7 words; free online list</li>
<li> MajorTests.com: 1000 words; 5 hits; one hit per 200 words; free online list</li>
<li> Blue Book: 669 words (based upon the list compiled by MajorTests.com);
3 hits; one hit per 223 words</li>
<li>Sesamewords: 450 words, 2 hits; one hit per 225 words</li>
<li>VocabVideo: 500 words; 2 hits; one hit per 250 words</li>
<li> Word Smart: 1505 words; 5 hits; one hit per 301 words</li>
</ol>

<p>It is interesting to note that none of these books/lists had Miscellany. Essential
was the only source that had Unnerved and Baleful. The College Board Blue
Book continued to be a very poor performer with just 3 hits out of 669 words.</p>