<p>If I wanted to study all the words I would ever need to get all the vocab on the SAT right every time, which list would I use. I'm alright with the Barrons list, but I was just wondering if there is a shorter one that would produce the same results. Any advice?</p>
<p>Come on People! Someone has to care... I have the McGraw Hill book which has lots of vocab and some good exercises for the words. Has anyone used this book? How about sparknotes 1000 word list? Is it good enough? Somebody! I'm tired of missing sentence completions because of vocab...</p>
<p>Well, I memorized a total of either "100" or "200" words found most common on the SATs. And by memorized, I mean, knew -- a lot of the words I knew before ever seeing them on the list.</p>
<p>So I didn't put too much effort into learning vocab. 800 CR.</p>
<p>I don't think it's so much learning the vocab as it is figuring out the words' meanings.</p>
<p>Well... I can get nearly all of them right. I might miss one or two per 19, and the reading passages aren't a problem. But I can learn words really fast and thought I might as well be done with sat vocab once and for all. I'm not asking for advice or opinions on whether or not it is a good idea to study vocab, I'm looking for advice on which list to study. I'm sure by the time I take the Sat "for real" I will know probobly all the words I need to, but I have reasons to learn them now and I'm asking HOW to do that. I'm just tired of missing 800 for something I can probobly correct in a month. That's all. Now... I would really appreciate comments and advice.</p>
<p>Bear in mind that there is no list that will do what you described. Assuming you were using hyperbole, Barrons is a good choice. I found a lot of the Barrons words on the PSAT, but actually don't recall seeing many on the SAT. The thing is, it's a toss-up. You might study Barrons and take the SAT in May and see no words from the list, whereas if you had taken the SAT in June instead half the words on the list may have been on there. Use the list that has the most words that you don't know. However, even if you memorized every list there was, you would not have all the words you ever saw on the SAT.</p>
<p>You will never be in a situation where you are finished with learning all of the vocab on the SAT until either you stop taking the SAT or you came in with a knowledge base of words that are on the test that you already knew before you began studying vocab. In other words, some people know all of the vocab on the SAT but they did not learn it all from any list or combination of lists. There will almost always be at least a couple words that are new to the SAT. </p>
<p>Again, Barrons is a good choice, but if you are looking for a list that actually does what you describe, there isn't one. There is not a list you can use that will in itself put you in a situation where you know all the necessary vocab for the SAT.</p>
<p>learning new vocab for the new SAT is less important than the old one in my opinion (i second Taggart, but i got a decent CR score 750+ without strenously studying vocb) because it isn't worth your study time. you mgith study a lotta words which will never cme out anyway. in short, study words, but don't worry if you don't study too mcuh. </p>
<p>with enough exprience learning the different prefixes and suffixes will help more in deducing the meaning of a word rather than trying to memorize all the meanings. sure its a bonus for learning the meanings, but its not worth the time. </p>
<p>my suggestion would be to try many practice problems and learn the context of as much words as possible, especially the last couple of questions of vocab sections as they're usually the hardest. context helps so much more in grasping the meanings of words, i think that's your way to go ather than rote memorizing the meanings of each word as many are easy forgettable beyond a week anyway.</p>
<p>By the way, I did leave a list. Just google the "Top 100 words found on SAT tests" or something and you'll have a nice list.</p>
<p>Don't study vocab; if anything, study roots. I studied thousands of words and winded up with a <600 score. Recently, I started practicing passage and now I'm scoring 700+ consistently in the blue book.</p>
<p>Well... of all the official sats college board has put out, I have yet to find one question that couldn't be answered with the vocab in Barron's. So, yes, although it is not all inclusive, and nothing is, in practicality, it is nearly 100% efficient. I guess I'll just go with that.</p>
<p>And in response to the "learn it from context" people, I totally agree, but for me, studying vocab is just as effective. I can learn a word, remember it, and completley grasp its meaning very easily. Then I extend on my understanding as I discover these words in books/on the sat. I can learn words really fast and, while context may be helpful, it can never prepare you for certain vocab as quickly or as effectivley as memorizing a 3500 word list. You can't deny that!</p>
<p>In actuality, vocab DOES matter, and there is no way to get all the questions right without a comprehensive knowledge of certain vocab words. I think memorizing Barron's would get me my 800, so I'll do that. Thanks!</p>
<p>i LOVE the McGraw Hill vocab list. I use that in addition to the Sparknotes 1000 vocab flashcards...and i've been getting nearly all the sentence completion exercises right.</p>
<p>I don't have the biggest of vocabularies and I didn't memorize any lists. 720 CR. That's not an especially astounding score, but with a little work I could have gotten higher while still not bothering to memorize the word lists. big waste of time, IMHO, you can study in more efficient ways.</p>
<p>Well, now I get consistantly in the mid 700's and if I can take two months to study vocab and will bring my score to around 800 consistantly, I'll do that. There really is no other way to learn the vocab that fast... and it IS necessary.</p>
<p>I agree with stix2400. Your'e studying the lists of vocab words for life... not only for the SAT. The hard work you are doing now will pay off in college...believe me!!!</p>
<p>Yes! Someone agrees with me... and I do appreciate my newfound vocabulary abilites and have found those words creep into everyday life. Someone said that McGraw Hill vocab was good, so I'll do that along with Sparknotes and see where that gets me.</p>
<p>The PR Hit Parade in Cracking the SAT is developed by looking at a large sample of released SAT's, assigning a weight based on each word's being the right or wrong answer as well as its frequency, and discarding really easy words. It's the top 250 you need to know. Then learn all the words from prior SAT's.</p>
<p>Kaplan makes a good flipbook for SAT vocab. It also includes lists of word roots at the end, which is really helpful.</p>
<p>I posted on this a while ago:</p>
<p>^^I entered all of Barrons, all of PR WordSmart, all the high frequency lists, and all of the words in the Blue Book into a massive Excel spreadsheet and compared them. I have percentages on this stuff to the .001%. So the post is at least based on hard facts.</p>
<p>Cool... great post and I'll keep that in mind, but I'm still going learn words. I really appreciate my new vocabulary and its relativley painless. I guess now I just won't expect for it to be all incusive and need to read all I can to complement it. What about those SAT vocab novels?</p>
<p>Hey, yeah, stix2400, I should have put that in the original post. I think it sounds a little more extreme than I meant it to.</p>
<p>Learning <em>some</em> words is a good idea for most people. I find that the best list for low scorers is called the Academic Word List (pretty much everybody on these boards will roll their eyes at how easy these words are, but if you find yourself stuck in the 400s, you should start here and make sure you know them all. Google "Academic Word List.") </p>
<p>I am still trying to compile the Best Possible SAT list, but based <em>only</em> on my current research, I'd say that the best widely available lists for moderate and high scorers are the high frequency lists that have been compiled based on previous College Board exams--not just the SAT lists, but also the PSAT and GRE lists.</p>
<p>Just remember: reading a lot will get you an 800! Memorizing won't. :)</p>