<p>What do you guys think about memorizing roots, prefixes, and suffixes in preparation for the SATs? Does it help?</p>
<p>I'd be interested in this too.</p>
<p>Can anyone who has tried it give an account please?</p>
<p>bump bump bump</p>
<p>I memorized roots and I took latin. I didnt find it helpful a bit. I think voca is a waste and the best skill to have is reasoning. Basically for CR, I redid questions.</p>
<p>If you really want to do well on the SAT (2300+), you need really a good command of vocab, for both the Sentence Completions and the essay. The roots can save you on some occasions, but I think memorizing the actual vocabulary is much more useful. Ultimately, however, it really depends on how much time you have.</p>
<p>I don't like roots, because, for example, it won't save you on this question. . .</p>
<p>The palliative potion (blank) him. (I made this up)</p>
<p>if you have a word like enervated (pretend that you don't know what that means) and you think it's like energized. . .you would be wrong</p>
<p>tizzy, u said the best skill to have is reasoning. wouldn't roots help with that? how can you reason with vocab words you don't know? thanks</p>
<p>Memorizing roots, prefixes, and suffixes can help a little bit. Plus, they don't take very long to memorize, so you might as well do it.</p>
<p>I don't think it helps.
Sometimes "uncoding" a word can be misleading...(can't think of example lol)
It's helpful ifyou know the basic roots, but i don't think it helps if u memorize long, extensive roots</p>
<p>I'm also a Latin student, and although I didn't memorize roots, I had a much easier time breaking down words and relating them to similar words. The Princeton Review book says memorizing roots doesn't help at all, but I didn't try it so I don't know.</p>
<p>I memorized roots for latin competitions, and I would never recommend it to someone looking to raise their SAT score. IMO it is fun and interesting, but when I would see a word I had never seen before but recognized its root, I wouldn't rely on it, ever. I think what one would see if he actually studied roots, is how much it gives you a history of a word but not the word's present significance. </p>
<p>For example, when I first saw "sanguine," I thought of the latin noun "sanguis, sanguinis" which means blood. Because I could see that sanguine is an adjective, what else could it mean but bloody? In fact it does mean bloody, but not at all the <em>connotation</em> you would think. It means bloody in the cheeks, as in you are cheerful and optimistic. There is another english word, sanguinary, which takes the negative side of "sanguis," and it means bloodthirsty. Nothing about roots tells you that these words are the same, or that they are different, just that they come from the latin for blood and probably relate to blood. You must throw connotation aside, and that is the huge disadvantage to studying roots for the SAT. </p>
<p>My point is that reason can prevent you from abusing roots, because there is nothing inherent in studying roots that makes you assume that roots tell you how a word is used or what it means today. If someone complains that studying roots hurts them, they are not using that information properly. If they did use it to their advantage, they probably wouldn't use it. Studying roots will lead you to use words like octogenerian and halcyon with ease, but if you are strictly looking to raise your score, studying roots is a red herring. If you want to strengthen your reasoning abilities, try other things. Practice? Grammatix? Something that helps you think.</p>
<p>Wow, thanks everyone. I was seriously considering studying roots to help me improve my score. I know realize how much time I would have wasted. I guess nothing beats practice out of the work books. Sreis, you mentioned using grammatix. Do you think it'll be adequate in helping me raise my 690 CR to 700+? My other scores are 600 M and 700 W (12 essay). Any advice to raise those scores? I'm shooting for 2100 and I only have one chance left.</p>
<p>Try to raise your math score. I'm sure you can get it to at least 650, if not 690+ with some practice problems.
CR is the hardest to raise... not saying it's impossible, but it's hard. The best advice I could give u is you have to read CRITICALLY. You can't just assume an answer because it looks good, or because you remember the author stating it in the passage. You need a reason why a is better than b,c,d, and e. Also, try reading the whole passage, or at least skimming it. A great tip I learned was to write a few words about each paragraph before moving on to the next paragraph, and then at the end, writing a sentence about the main idea.
That strategy of reading the questions first and then reading the first sentence of each paragraph? Those strategies only work for ppl who are trying to score in the 600s.
If you need any other suggestions, i'm willing to help! Although i'm not a critical reading hotshot, i improved from 580 to 720...</p>
<p>Well Twinkletoes...I know I'm aiming high, but I'd really like to make it to at least one of the top Ivies and 650 definately isn't going to cut it. Thanks for the advice on reasoning why a is better than b,c,d, and e. I normally cut it down to 2 choices but I don't exactly reason why I chose one over the other because I'm usually torn over picking one. I've also heard about jotting notes down for each paragraph and a sentence for the main idea but doesn't that just waste time? I've only tried it once, and that was on my first PSAT. I was totally nervous so I didn't do well and just threw out that technique. Should I go back to it? Is it really helpful? Do you have any suggestions for the sentence completions, such as when one doesn't know what the answer choices means? </p>
<p>I know I definately need to raise my math score, but I'm absolutely horrible at math. I have no idea how to reason out the problems at all. Geometry and permutation/combination problems really kill me. Any advice here? </p>
<p>By the way, that's a huge leap in your score. Congratz, I hope I can achieve the same!</p>
<p>I have the benefit of Latin as well as a love for linguistics and etymology, so I should be okay. However, for people interested in roots, prefixes, and suffixes, here's a nice list:</p>
<p>There are some other helpful lists here:</p>
<p>
[quote]
The Princeton Review book says memorizing roots doesn't help at all, but I didn't try it so I don't know.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>If they say it doesn't help, then why do they provide long lists to memorize?</p>
<p>I like the way grammatix is written and think the techniques are good. I definitely think you can raise a 690 to over 700 with grammatix and practice. But don't look it as aiming high. Sure you want a higher score than what you have, but with sound techniques and lots of practice its certainly possible to get to 2100. I think someone went from 1950-2340 in two weeks? Just eat up those practice tests.</p>
<p>It's always better to aim high than low. Because if you aim low, you might be cheating yourself for a lower SAT score than what you can potentially score.</p>
<p>Definitely outline for the double passage questions. I usually circle words that summarize the main idea of the paragraph. For example, when the author describes her opinion towards fast food restaurants, I may circle "damaging", "endangering our kids health" etc. That way, when the a question states "The views of passage two differ from fast food restaurants in the sense that..." It's much easier to locate in the passage where the information is.</p>
<p>For sentence completions, it's hard if you don't know what the word means. Vocab is crucial. Otherwise, remember this hint: hard questions have hard answers... so don't pick what you think joe bloggs would pick... lol. Also, make sure you read the sentences VERY CAREFULLY. Each word is put in there for a reason... if you miss a three letter word such as "but" you'll get the wrong answer.</p>
<p>The best way to prepare for math is to practice. Do the practice tests from the blue book. And for all the questions you don't know how to do, ASK!!! ask a friend, or better yet, ask all these smart people here at cc. If you don't ask, you'll never improve. Also, asking questions gives you insight on how other ppl might approach the same problems.</p>
<p>Excellent recommendation about circling key passages; I'll have to remember that. I'm so used to not being allowed to put even the tiniest marks on test booklets, so this will be a strange (but good!) change.</p>
<p>I took the SAT twice, after the first, I decided I try to learn a bunch of roots. I ended up doing worse the second time. I think it would help better to learn actual words.</p>