<p>Is studying Prefixes, Suffixes, Roots more reliable than hundreds or even thousands of words? Does anyone have any lists of Prefixes, Suffixes, and Roots or reccomend any books to study them from?</p>
<p>Mean answer: reading a lot ever since you were little is the best prep. Reading literature, newspapers, and magazines of merit at any point is also helpful. </p>
<p>Nice answer: Uhh, whatever works for you. I do think it's probably better, since knowing what the root means will rarely let you down. The gifted program that I was in in middle school did that, but I didn't retain much of that info. Personally, I would combine the two (that's what I did in MS)--I would study the roots, but I would also study a corresponding list of words. I don't know of any books, though...sorry :(.</p>
<p>studying roots is great and all but it didn't help me the first time i took the SAT (soph - 2280, 720 V)...every question I had trouble with was a sentence completion because I didn't know the vocabulary. this time though i'm going to go through the huge list in my Barron's book and memorize every word.</p>
<p>lolz, you gotta memorize complex ones, not like
re- to do again
ir- not</p>
<p>and the rest..</p>
<p>PSswmr76-I plan on doing the same thing, studying the words in the Barrons book, how many words have you memorized so far?</p>
<p>Studying word roots tends to be more efficient than tackling word lists that are in alphabetical order. It is true that there is no substitute for lots of independent reading, but study of word roots can help make your independent reading more interesting and pleasurable.</p>
<p>i've advocated a similar approach elsewhere on this board, but in the interest of differentiation and explanation i'd like to say something--</p>
<p>to me, memorizing prefixes and suffixes and roots isn't much of an improvement over memorizing individual vocabulary words. the central problem still exists, which is that memorization is no way to acquire vocabulary. if you really want to know a word, you have to learn it the way you've learned all your other words--by being exposed to them in context.</p>
<p>i think that the smartest way to approach the test is to be <em>aware</em> of english morphology, and to use this knowledge informally as you encounter unknown words. then you combine your own innate understanding of english with the limitations of the SAT's design.</p>
<p>to my mind, the time that most test-takers spend cramming vocabulary lists would be better put to use practicing the above approach on real SAT questions. to be sure, it can be slow going in the beginning, but it comes faster than you might think.</p>
<p>(of course the situation will be more challenging for non-native speakers, but that would be the case no matter which method you used.)</p>
<p>"Student uses a variety of skills to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words, including pronouncing words to trigger recognition; searching for related words with similar meanings; and analyzing prefixes, roots, and suffixes."</p>
<p>This came straight from the Collegeboard SAT Online Course.</p>