<p>Does anyone have a list of prefixes/suffixes, latin/greek roots for vocabulary words? If you do, please copy them here or link to the url</p>
<p>I actually have a very comprehensive list that was handed out by my english teacher at the beginning of this year...unfortunately, i am away visiting family for the next few days - when i get home, i'll gladly scan the list.</p>
<p>hey... does memorizing the prefixes/suffixes, latin/greek roots actually help, or is one just better off concentrating only on the "top 500 words that appear on the SAT" list?</p>
<p>I think that roots would be more beneficial because people with knowledge of roots could probably figure out what words mean, whereas if you study a list, many words might not be on the test.</p>
<p>My english teacher last year said you would be better off studying actual words for a few reasons. You would naturally get a hang of and learn the roots after doing many words, first of all. Also, roots can't help for a lot of words. Ex: Sanguine, the root comes from the latin word for blood which would NOT help you guess the meaning of the word. I did like 2000 or so words, no roots, and I consistently know all of the words on practice tests and so forth. My friend who got 2 800 verbals and an 80 verbal on the psat said it is a lot better just to concentrate on a lot of little SAT word lists, like PR's hit parade, plus barron's high frequency words, 500 hot words for the sat etc.</p>
<p>Good point stevezilla.</p>
<p>The problem is that a lot of people do not have time to study, so they might not learn the roots through memorizing the words. I will probably end up studying 500 words and many roots.</p>
<p>Sparknotes gives a very good argument for why using word roots isn't recommended.</p>
<p>"Word Roots and What We Think of Them</p>
<p>Some test preparation companies suggest that you study word roots as part of your vocabulary building strategy. Its easy to see why. Words are often made up of subunits derived from Latin or Greek. These subunits have meanings, and often you can get a good sense of the meaning of the word if you recognize its subunits. For example, if you encounter the word antebellum and dont know what it means, you can get clues about its meaning if you know something about its roots. Ante means before, and bellum means war (think belligerent or rebellion), so you might think that antebellum means before the war. If you did, youd be right. Even if you only knew what the root ante meant, you would at least have the sense that that word is used to set a time frame, which might be all you need to know to answer the question.</p>
<p>However, just as often as they can help you, word roots can lead you astray. Say you saw the word precept and knew that the root pre means before and the root cept means to take. Precept must then mean before taking or something like that, right? Well, heres the actual definition of the word:</p>
<p>precept
a rule defining conduct or behavior</p>
<p>Word roots pretty much hosed you there, didnt they? In our opinion, roots are as much trouble as they are helpful. Because the positives and negatives they provide cancel each other out, it seems youd be better off avoiding the word roots strategy. "</p>
<p>I agree with Stevezilla. I haven't taken the SAT yet, but on the PSAT I got a 71 CR without missing a single vocabulary question (-4 Reading Comprehension, 0 omits). I didn't study any root words, but scanned over various short word lists before taking the test. I am going to study some more words (from The Lexicon, by Bill Buckley), and will practice reading before taking the real SAT in March.</p>