<p>Here's my 2 cents (I'm a tutor).</p>
<p>First of all, your friend is right to memorize words; in the 300s, vocabulary can be huge. But the Barrons 3500 list is probably too hard; it contains mostly tricky vocab. If your friend is in the low 300s, he may need to learn easy and medium words first.</p>
<p>Freerice.com is a fantastic resource and he should definitely check it out and use it, but it probably won't be enough. </p>
<p>If the words aren't "sticking" it's usually because you don't know how to memorize words. Is your friend trying to study by reading a vocab list over and over again, or simply staring at the definitions and trying to commit them to memory? That's not the way. To really learn words, you've got to do two things:</p>
<p>1) Test yourself again and again. Flash cards are far and away the best for this, and I never memorize words without making flash cards, but some people don't take the time. If you don't make cards, though, you absolutely have to study by covering the definitions up and testing yourself to see if you remember, them looking at the definition, then covering them up again. Memorizing really means repeated self-testing.</p>
<p>2) Make up mnemonics: exaggerated sentences that help you visualize the meaning of the word (often with rhymes), like "I allege you pushed me off a ledge." Cheesy (like that) is fine; you've just got to make a picture in your head of the meaning of the word.</p>
<p>If your friend were in my classroom, these are the words I'd make him use. They're very important SAT vocab but they're too easy for a lot of SAT students so you won't find them on SAT lists. For students in the 200s-400s, though, they're a good starting point. Here they are (744 of 'em):</p>
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<p>Also, you should be skipping about half of the questions for now (inference ones are good to leave blank). You can actually get a score in the 500s skipping nearly half the questions. After you get into the 400s you might start doing more questions.</p>