<p>The answer is YES. I agree that if you can memorize 3000 words and remember them, it will be very useful. Good vocabulary makes you an educated person and I don't see WHY you would NOT do this. But solely relying on this type of memorization on CR can be very hazardous. For instance, you'll most likely not know all the words in the SAT. This is because even though you may think that you learned all the possible words, ETS has a long history of choosing vocabulary. After all, all they do is make tests!</p>
<p>I agree that roots help but you shouldn't only rely on roots either. I think both are necessary and it will be good to see many vocabulary. For some sentences, you can get the question right by remembering if it was positive word or negative word. For instance:</p>
<p>Known as a common person in PR, Joe Bloggs seems like a _________ person.
A) tenacious
B) obdurate
C) sophomoric
D) bellicose
E) tractable</p>
<p>If you know that A,B,C, and D are negative words (without knowing exact definition), you can see that E is indeed answer. Because we're saying a "common person," it should be positive. And ha, if you ask this question to PR, they'll say: "Come on, choose E because do you think ETS like to criticize people?" and end there.</p>
<p>I memorized Sparknotes' list of the 1000 Most Common SAT Words about a month before my SAT, and it definitely helped me out -- I recognized so many words from the list that I never would've known otherwise.</p>
<p>Crossword puzzles, especially the NY Times Saturday (hardest) and Sunday (bigger) will help improve vocabulary. It's a way of learning new words that is an alternative to memorizing. By actually using the word in a context it should "stick" better.</p>
<p>i would rather memorize out of the dictionarty than do a crossword puzzle. They are sooooooooooooooooooo boring. I just memorize lists I get from different sources.</p>
<p>Is your screenname current? That wouldn't be much of an endorsement of that method. I note from your location that you may not be a native speaker of English, in which case I congratulate you on how well you write English, but it's still the best plan to READ, READ, READ, and READ in a wide variety of English books and magazines rather than memorize vocabulary lists. As I wrote above, the test is DESIGNED to distinguish test-takers who read a lot from test-takers who only memorize lists.</p>
<p>I think it's much wiser to highlight words you don't know as you're doing the practice tests and look them up. Knowing word suffixes, prefixes, and the overall tone of the word would help too.
IMHO stategy > machine-like memorization of vocab words.
Just use the juicy tips for CR passages and sentence completions.</p>