Hi guys I’m back with another trouble: vocabulary. I’ve finished the word list on quizlet and my verbal DOES improve, but the score is always too low when I compare with the ones in this forum. I heard that the test prep centers had their own vocab list, and their words were really on most test (like the junior version of Direct Hits). But the SAT takers say learning words from practice tests is a great way to increase vocabularies, do you think that it is good for SSAT too? I think I would go that way, because the word lists are different in the prep books. But do the most common words they change each year?
By the way, which percentile are you talking about? SSAT or National? Thanks!!
do you have a cell phone or tablet? I downloaded apps onto my kid’s phone that helped improved his score. Also, buy a SSAT book like Princeton Review or Kaplan- they have SSAT vocab lists that you can use to make flashcards.
Learn all the word roots. From my experience, its pretty much impossible to remember the meaning of all the words you memorise, but if you find a list of word roots (prefixes and suffixes) and you memorise that you can have a pretty good idea of what the word means even if you’ve never seen it. One of the SSAT books I would recommend is 30 Days to Acing the SSAT. If you follow the course of the book, you’d find the chunks of information much easier to retain, and I’ve seen a couple of the vocabulary in there in my tests. Remember that memorising thousands of words isn’t gonna help if you forget everything.
I wouldn’t recommend too many word lists, since it’ll probably just make you more nervous and you’d end up forgetting a good chunk of it anyways. Instead, do some practice tests and find the words you get wrong, and memorise them(look up their meaning and make a sentence with them, as often three choices may mean similar things but only one can be used in the same context as the question word. sometimes you might even know what the word means but still get it wrong as you don’t know if they can be used in the same way). Use short word lists and word root lists do supplement that, and you should be fine.
Thanks, I can’t use my phone anyway because it is the 90s’ one which is only used for calling, but I’ve just taken a look at the PR word list and it is even more amazing than the Quizlet set, but I prefer the Barron’s roots. I have nearly 4 months more to learn so I think it will be fine.
Read! All the time just read. And when you speak try to speak at the highest possible level you can. Memorizing words doesn’t really increase your vocabulary. It just improves your test score.
Completely agree with @laenen. I know it’s not a quick fix, but is true.
My kids’ school administers an SAT (Stanford 10) test at the end of every year, starting in Kindergarten. The kids do not prepare for the test, and results are used by the school mostly for identifying potential problem areas in the curriculum and teaching methods. (Parents, on the other hand, use them to agonize about Junior’s college career beginning at age 5.) In the last two years, as my daughter started year-round training and traveling for sports and had little time for non-assigned reading, there was a very visible drop in her verbal and reading scores from the high 90s where they’ve always been, to the mid/high 70s. School grades didn’t change, and quantitative scores didn’t change, but the verbal/reading scores really suffered. The voracious readers score best, and that’s what the test is designed to measure: how well-read you are, not how many words you are able to cram in 30 days.
I want to add another point. It doesn’t matter what you read. Get away from the screen and read. In the car, at night, eating breakfast, etc. This might not change your scores this year but the level of your vocabulary with help in almost every work environment.
Thanks for your comments! But coud you please tell me what do you do when you come acrosss a new word? Look up in the dictionary and write the definition in the notebook? Or you make a highlight in the book?
I think I’ll try both ways to learn more vocabularies. Because books provide us a wide range of words, while the vocab list show us which words are most common. I had read half of an English book but I couldn’t continue, I didn’t like to carry the dictionary with me everywhere (not the book). But I will continue to read as soon as possible. These days I learn English so much that I answered in English when my mom called 
I’ve never found only writing the definition ever working. Reading can help you put the word in context, so look it up, write down the definition, a sentence of your own with similar context, then check if the word in the dictionary has any OTHER meanings (which they often do, even if that meaning if subtle) so make sure you write that definition down and make another sentence too.
If you have difficulty reading English books, I recommend reading a humorous book with a plot that you really want to follow, so they won’t seem like a chore. Although I’m not a huge fan of John Green’s books now, I would imagine they’re great for building vocabulary for SSAT - he uses a lot of rather obscure or slightly complicated words, and his tone is really quite cool, so you’d find them an interesting read.
@tanphuzkid — if you read enough then you will not have to look up any words. Incorporating these words into every day speech is very important. We also play word games while we drive. Both my children have always tested high in ELA.
Try to never be without a book. And turn off anything with a video screen. Even a kindle paper white can not replace a book.
laenen-your advice would be great for those of us living in an English speaking environment, where we can simply read more and speak more eloquently to boost our vocabulary, but for what I understand of OP, English is not OP’s first language, and neither does OP have an English environment where they can practice in, so it might be difficult for him to do so. So while I agree that OP should read to improve their vocabulary, I really don’t think not looking up the words would be a good idea. For native-English speakers it may be easy to put words into context and infer from there, but I don’t think it would really apply in this case.
I agree with everyone. Reading helps, but it is a long term solution, so work on incorporating it now (it’ll help your writing too!). For synonyms, you either know the word or you don’t, so memorization helps. I bought practice books, took the verbal section, and drilled the words I didn’t know. They are on the test! Find flashcards on quizlet to learn other words. For the analogies, recognizing the relationships between the words will require a lot of practice and review. Good luck!
I agree with both too, now I´m a bit confused.
Btw I´m a girl not boy 
give up. most of the words you’ll see on the test will be stuff you never saw in your life!! And they change constantly, so instead of looking at words, practice using context clues, because that helped me on my SATs. My score wasn’t perfect, but it got me college acceptance.
Are you taking the TOEFL? If English isn’t your first language, they will be more forgiving of your Verbal scores
@CaliMex yes, I do. But maybe I should hire someone to help me with the test because Toefl is much more difficult to me than SSAT. Toefl’s words, some of them are the same as SSAT’s, I bought a Toefl flashcard set with examples and funny drawings. I can learn 50 words a day thanks to it.
@CaliMex Do schools overlook international students’ low verbal scores?? If that is the case, this exam will be less stressful for OP and many other international applicants.
No they can’t. These students have perform in school and verbal ability in English is critical.
@StandardizedGirl, Except where they have ESL courses. Then the international students takes ESL courses until their English becomes as good as domestic students’
It takes years and years of heavy reading to develop that skill