memorizing vocab vs. learning roots

<p>do you guys recommend memorizing vocab lists or learning common roots?
isn't learning roots more efficient?</p>

<p>Personally, I would recommend just getting the words down. Learning roots sounds cool at first, but it’s highly impractical on a high-stakes test such as the S.A.T.</p>

<p>why is learning roots impractical?</p>

<p>Learning roots doesn’t work for most words. Sometimes the roots can trick you and be ambiguous. Learning key words is much more efficient and practical. The word list that I used was “Up Your Score: the Underground Guide to the SAT” It has a list of about 600 words with funny sample sentences for each one. There were literally like 5 sentence completions on my test where every choice was from my book :D</p>

<p>I would go with memorizing a list of frequently used vocab words as well (direct hits, PR hit parade etc…) because many of the words do come up. As the other people have said, learning the roots may sound like a good idea, but it really isn’t all that helpful for the sentence completion unless you get a word that’s really easy to dissect, and even in that case, basic knowledge should suffice.</p>

<p>alright for direct hits is it enough to only memorize the first volume? or do i have to buy both volumes?</p>

<p>Both. </p>

<p>tanchar</p>

<p>Definitely both</p>