Is memorizing Barron's 3500 words really that useless?

<p>What I've been doing recently: I go through all the words, simply read the words' definitions and sentences of I already know them, make a circle next to the ones I don't know perfectly, and highlight the ones I really really don't know and can't even figure out in context.</p>

<p>So far, only 1/4 of the words I've gone through are highlighted. By just reading through the words I've placed a circle next to, I sort of have a feeling of what the word means, but not the exact meaning. This is good enough for the Sentence Completions.</p>

<p>3500/4 = 875 words. Then, if I study 60 minutes a day, I can memorize and recite the definition of 60 words. This might or might not go into my long term memory, but no matter what, if I look back at the word later, I'll still have some idea of what it means, which is good enough.</p>

<p>865/60 = 15 days. I could memorize it all by the end of summer and then review a bit everyday. That's not very difficult at all. Then, with Direct Hits too, I memorize all the words I need for the SAT.</p>

<p>Wouldn't this be a lot better than learning just Direct Hits? I don't understand why everyone thinks learning more words is so useless.</p>

<p>It’s not useless…it’s just inefficient. Direct Hits has a better hits to total words ratio than Barrons.</p>

<p>umm… ur probably gonna forget nearly 30 - 50 percent of the words, so yeah its a waste</p>