<p>I've heard that taking Latin I, II, and III through high school can really help improve your English vocab, because many English and Latin words have the same/similar roots. So, could being conversational in Latin really help on the CR section of the SAT? Does anyone have any personal experience with this?</p>
<p>Thanks in advance :)</p>
<p>yes, I take latin and to tell you the truth it's really not going to help you that much. So maybe you pick up a few words here and there because of it, but French or Spanish will probably do the same.</p>
<p>I agree - French, Spanish, or Italian should be equally good. As should just working with a Latin/Greek roots vocabulary book like the one my son's Engliah teacher chose for his class. For the CR reading section, I think reading extensively in many different subject areas is the best preparation, but it's certainly not a quick fix method.</p>
<p>Roots will help, but I dont think it is worth wasting your time. I would just learn a few commonly occurring roots and then some targeted SAT vocab.</p>
<p>Also, reading and looking up the words you dont know will probably trump any of the ideas presented thus far. But I mean reading real works, not People magazine or Sports Illustrated. Try American Scholar, Wilson Quarterly, New Yorker, Economist...</p>
<p>roots will help only if you learn to WORK with them. You have to learn to apply the roots:
breviloquent: brev (short) loq (talk, i.e. loquacious)--> somebody who talks little..
Greek and Latin roots definitely help. I am Greek myself and the roots do help a lot. One hindrance is however, that some words may have different meaning than in Greek. For example, eclectic in Greek means selective, whereas in English it means taken from a wide array of sources....</p>
<p>however, it does help on the whole..but dont neglect it. U gotta practice, otherwise ur knowledge will atrophy.</p>
<p>It may all depend on your Latin teacher and curriculum, but I would strongly agree that taking Latin approves not only CR SAT scores, but it also helps you on the writing section! Countless times on the SAT/practice tests I've been stumped by a certain word, but remembered my Latin roots and constructions, and immediately found the answer. </p>
<p>Sure, you can review roots with a test prep program, but I believe that taking the actual language gives you the deepest understanding possible for vocabulary, sentence structure, parts of speech, and grammar. </p>
<p>LATIN ROX!!!!</p>
<p>wow, sb loves latin!! :D:D</p>
<p>latin roots suck. to me it's much easier to remember a bunch of words than memorize meaningless roots.</p>
<p>This is a rationalization, simply because you have not learned to WORK with roots. if you actually tried to apply the roots and worked with it, it would make things so much easier. </p>
<p>P.S. Memorizing words is the most anti-pedagogic thing there is to do. You are nuts if you think you will actually benefit from this..</p>
<p>I got 800 on CR and I just memorized words.... But then again I had a big vocabulary to begin with. I would say, if your vocab is small memorize roots, otherwise if your vocab is large, just brush up on some commonly used words on the SAT... latin accounts for 60% of the English language... you decide.</p>
<p>I got an 800 without any prep at all, but I've been reading almost constantly since elementary school. I think at this point its a bit late and that simply reading extensively, not simple novels either- I'm talking scholarly journals, history books, biographies etc, will more than prepare you for the test.</p>
<p>The first month of Latin I could help your English sections. Spanish and the other romance languages do not help in the same way, IMO, as a student in Spanish III (never helped in English) and Latin I (helped more than I imagined) as a junior. Our Latin class has a focus on derivatives, and there are words that even my English teacher (at a top prep school) is unacquainted with that I have seen pop up on the SAT that I know only because of Latin. I am speaking as someone who is very strong in English; if one was weak in English, I can't even imagine how much it could help. </p>
<p>To clarify, I have never learned by working with roots by themselves. I simply know the words in Latin and can use the words themselves in English. Sometimes I am able to identify roots, but I never sit down and say, "This is the root for this word." For example, if I know ambulat means he walks in Latin, and I see ambled on the SAT (to choose a most basic example), I know what ambled means without having any clue what the exact root is.</p>
<p>natedawg, how late is too late? im currently in 8th grade (no, im not obsessed, i was just considering taking latin online next year and weighing the pros and cons), and i read a LOT grades 1-5, practically stopped reading all together 6-7, and took it up again this year. is it too late for me to try to read lots of the classics?</p>
<p>I have been taking Latin for the past three years--though occasionally a root correlation can be helpful, I've also found that my knowledge of the classics more frequently confuses me when searching for roots in English vocabulary. There are so many similar roots, and the meanings are sometimes ambiguous...Still, in English class we actually have a book "Vocabulary from Classical Roots" so I'm sure that someone important somewhere has some evidence of this being helpful.</p>
<p>Classics can be mystifying. Examples of ambiguous words:
Sycophant (suck-up=/=traitor)(the left is in greek)
Esoteric (understandable by only an enlightened inner circle =/=internal)</p>
<p>well if you're only in 8th grade you have plenty of time considering you read a lot as you say. if you just read all kinds of things, not just classics, you will naturally get better at comprehension and vocabulary as well as using latin roots. taking the class may help but i think you still have time. if its not too much trouble, take the class just to back up your reading. you should be fine as you are only in 8th grade.</p>
<p>I found my knowledge of Latin helpful on the SAT I (800 CR years ago). </p>
<p>The most important thing about Latin for me was not just that it taught me the roots, but that it taught me how to analyze Latin words. Latin roots are a little weird in that they are usually based on a metaphor of some kind; the meaning of the root is concrete, but the meaning of the word is abstract. (Take "traduce": to disgrace publicly. The roots are "trans-" across and "duc-" to lead. The metaphor here is of a person being led across a public space in disgrace. ) Even if you don't learn the Latin language, you should spend some time practicing with the roots and acquainting yourself with how they form words, not just memorizing them in the same way that you would vocabulary items.</p>