<p>Haha good job lotf629! I hope you remember me, I was in your thread about the list.</p>
<p>I checked it out and skimmed through it since I believed it would help, and I was correct! Sentence completions were a breeze for me on the test two days ago, I couldn't believe it. I don't think I've gotten a single sentence completion wrong according to the answers posted here on these forums.</p>
<p>thank you!!! It has helped me a lot.</p>
<p>@SkyGirl: It depends. :)</p>
<p>Basically, there are two kinds of word knowledge. (I'm simplifying a little bit to keep things clear). One is productive knowledge: in other words, can you use the word in writing and speaking? The other is receptive knowledge: can you understand the word in reading, test taking, and listening? </p>
<p>If your goal is to build your reading and test-taking vocabulary, I think you are okay to just use the Barrons meanings. Put them on flash cards and you should be good to go--although I have to say that I find the Barrons list to be a little bit arbitrary; it covers only about half of the SC vocabulary on most exams.</p>
<p>If your goal is to learn to use the words in your own writing, I <em>love</em> a dictionary called the Advanced Learner's English Dictionary (Collins Cobuild). It's primarily for ESL students but it has most words on most vocab lists, so I recommend it for native speakers as well. The reason I like it so much is because it provides definitions in the form of sentences, not standalone phrases: for instance, while most dictionaries would say something like </p>
<p>"fruition, n. the realization of something that was desired or hoped for"</p>
<p>this dictionary will say something like</p>
<p>"fruition, n. If something comes to fruition, it starts to succeed and produce the results that were intended or hoped for."</p>
<p>These definitions make it much, much easier to use words correctly in your own writing. What's more, the sentences are based on the dictionary maker's analysis of millions and millions of printed words: they reflect important analysis about the way words in English are really used.</p>
<p>But, obviously, if you are trying to learn how to use words correctly as you go, you can't learn nearly as many words. When you're learning words for reading and writing, you're looking at 5-10 a day, tops, I think. When you're learning words for reading and test-taking purposes, you can do as many as 80 a day if you have to (although I don't recommend it). So you have to decide on your objective. </p>
<p>To sum up:</p>
<p>If your only goal is to make yourself a better reader and test taker, or you are taking the test this Nov/Dec, I'd say that you can lean on the Barrons defs and forget the dictionary.</p>
<p>If you are trying to make yourself a better writer and speaker, or you have a year or so to prepare, I'd invest in the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's Dictionary ($30) and go more slowly. </p>
<p>In neither case do I think that the American Heritage and Webster's dictionaries is significantly better than the Barrons list, I guess.</p>
<p>@Kevinscool: Funny sentences are hugely helpful, I agree.</p>
<p>@pick: I'm so happy I helped you! That was my goal in posting the list: to give some hardworking, deserving student a hand. I do remember you response to my original post. Thank you so much for letting me know that you found the words useful, and congratulations on your SC results! :)</p>
<p>I didn't even realize you were a SAT tutor or what not. I saw another SAT tutor talk about taking the oct. test. I wish i had tutors like you and him...I canceled my tutor because the same tutor who tutored elementary kids and who have never taken the SAT was "tutoring" me. By tutoring, i mean straight reading out of a book about the SAT.</p>
<p>Thanks lotf629 for the tips! I am taking the exam in Nov and another in December.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice, loft629 :) I'll do my best to work with it. Can't wait to see that 1900 vocab list by the end of the week! Looking forward to it.</p>
<p>Thanks for the help!</p>
<p>What a great job, loft629!</p>
<p>Before the October SAT I've promised to share with you my statistics.</p>
<p>It agrees to a high degree with yours, based on what I've heard from my students and what I've gleaned from taking the test.
Just as you said, we'll know better when we get our QAS's.</p>
<p>To be honest, I don't believe that so many "brainy" words should be on the test (as one of the posters has pointed out before that the SAT is still more or less a reasoning test). Even voracious readers (like me:cool:) don't encounter many of those words in their reading fodder.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the CB set out the rules, and we have to play the game according to them. That means we need to prepare thoroughly and efficiently. You can't just go around trying to memorize the whole Oxford American English or some other academic dictionary. You should neither grab any available SAT Word List and learn it by heart.
Many SAT prep companies tried to come up with reliable concise lists, and they have done that with a various success - or none.<br>
I highly value the list created by the company I work with. Still, I find yours superior to ours and other lists, even though yours is quite longer. I am very impressed that you offer your list and many valuable advices to any interested student completely "free of charge".
I am also very grateful for your allowing us using the list in our prep work with no royalties attached.</p>
<p>I know that it's not your primary goal, but I would not be surprised if you find a high tide of new applicants at your gates.:D
Good luck and a huge thanks again!</p>
<p>Hi gcf101,</p>
<p>Thanks so much for those supportive remarks, and for posting your results! I hope the list helps your students.</p>
<p>I agree that the level of vocabulary tested is sometimes a little bit wacky. I was really happy when they ditched the analogies section. At least CR is mostly reading now.</p>
<p>I posted the list with defs and synonyms at <a href="http://www.sesamewords.com%5B/url%5D">www.sesamewords.com</a>. (Why sesamewords? I don't know, because everything else I tried was taken, and I thought it was cute.)</p>
<p>The defs and synonyms still need to be edited, but they're better than nothing. The defs come from a Princeton research project (used by permission): they're dictionary-style defs, so they're sometimes a little arcane. I'm going to keep refining over the coming weeks and months.</p>
<p>In the meantime, if you are one of the people who was interested in the list and you decide to check it out, please PM me if you have any suggestions about making it better (other than the obvious that the defs and syns still need editing).</p>
<p>Thanks so much, loft629! ^_^ This is a big help! I'll be sure to give my best and try to memorize the 1900 list before the November test. This is such a generous offer!</p>
<p>Thank you once again! <3 I think you'll be a big help to millions of students in the near future.</p>
<p>amb3r, you goose. :) You say you don't know who the audience for these lists is, and now I find out from another thread that you went and memorized the Barrons list! </p>
<p>The whole reason I put these lists together in the first place is so that people would have an alternative to the Barrons list, which seems to cover only about 50% of any given SAT.</p>
<p>If you are going to memorize several thousand words, I feel that you have the right to expect to know almost all the words on the test.</p>
<p>I know I'm giving you a hard time and I'm sure you had your reasons both for your post and for your choice of memorization strategy. I'm not trying to attack you, just teasing; but I did want to point out that--for a lot of people, perhaps even including you--having a long list of vocab can help.</p>
<p>I also think that--unless Barrons has dramatically improved their list, which is certainly possible--there are better alternatives out there. I have a short list (2000 words) available which is a better time investment, for instance. I think even the new Gruber's may be better (although the old Gruber's list was just awful).</p>
<p>Haha. I don't remember what my initial problem with your list(s) was, anymore... in retrospect, I guess it's hypocritical of me to criticize any list for its length! I never realized that the 3500 Barron's thing only had a hit rate of 50%. I would have expected a higher number. But I always find that the first few questions on each sentence completion section have answer choices that may be too everyday or commonly used for Barron to include on its list, so maybe that's part of the reason why.</p>
<p>Anyway, the more word list resources there are for students to use, the better, so I'm not critical of your efforts at all :)</p>
<p>I have a small suggestion - putting this list into a pdf would make us more happy. ^^ Although I'm pretty sure most of us are delighted already... :)</p>
<p>awh that websites so cute haha lol</p>
<p>lotf629: Thank you</p>
<p>where can i get the list? are you pming it lotf629?</p>
<p>I love the website so much. Thank you, loft629!!!</p>
<p>Hey, I am so glad that some of you guys find this useful! </p>
<p>Just a couple quick notes:</p>
<p>As I said before, I just yanked the definitions from a reference source without editing them first (I wanted to provide you guys with something to save you time). It would obviously be better if each word had a short, clear, easy-to-memorize definition. I am working on that now.</p>
<p>Also, it just occurred to me that I didn't tell you guys much about the 1900-word list. Basically, the 1900-word list seems to cover about as many words on the typical SAT as the Barrons 3500 word list: about 80-82%, if you make some allowance for different suffixes and whatnot. It's like a concentrated Barrons list.</p>
<p>The 5000 word list covers an additional 10-15% of all words, it seems. (The thing about learning vocabulary is, you get diminishing returns.) I think that, depending on the student and the situation, that's probably 20-70 additional points on the CR section?? Obviously not everybody needs the long list.</p>
<p>So--in my opinion, not that I am biased :) --both the long list and the short list provide you with alternatives to the Barrons list. The difference is that the short list has a hit rate similar to Barrons, but takes much less time to memorize. The long list covers many more words--in fact, I hope, all the words you might ever need to know, which Barrons does not--but takes more time to memorize.</p>
<p>Thank you guys so much for letting me know that you're putting it to use. Feel free to pm me with any specific suggestions you have for making it better.</p>
<p>i want the list.</p>
<p>what is the website?</p>