<p>Godot, can you send me those 1000 words haha.</p>
<p>E-mail or PM me.</p>
<p>memorizing huge wordlist was NOT a waste of time, at least for me.
if u don't wanna study, then go ahead and stop memorizing. but if your problem is analogy and sentence completion, memorizing words will definitely help you. It'll help you in your life, anyways.
went from 650 to 750, and i credit most of it to memorizing.</p>
<p>see wat i mean?</p>
<p>Nitinrao, which letter are you on?</p>
<p>i am on F lol</p>
<p>Nitinrao, have you taken a diagnostic test? Are you preparing for the January 22, 2005 test? How do intend to prepare for the Critical Reading sections? </p>
<p>At this stage, I would highly recommend you to take all the verbal sections of a diagnostic test WITHOUT time restrictions and WITH your Barron's guide next to you. Take the test, mark and count every word that the Barron's list helps you identify. </p>
<p>On a typical test, counting every word in the booklet, there are about 80-130 words on the test that will also appear on the Barron's list. From the 80-130 common words, average students know about 75%, good students know about 90%, and superior students know all of them. From reading your posts, I am starting to realize that you probably rank outside those groups and fall in the category of students who may find the list helpful. </p>
<p>After taking the diagnostic test I described above, you may want to reevaluate your strategies, especially if you will take one of the new SAT tests.</p>
<p>Xiggi, 130 words is not bad. many ppl in this site agree that the list is extremely helpful. i think so too. but i also think that this list is long and has useless words. the list wont just help wit SAT-but other test, like many kids using this list have agreed too. What list do u prefer then?</p>
<p>Xiggi doesn't prefer a wordlist. When he studied for the SAT, he would practice from 10 Reals. </p>
<p>The words that he did toggle around with were from a variety of sources and he compiled his own list of words. Most of them had 3 meanings for the same word too, so you would know secondary meanings for the test.</p>
<p>You could search it on the old forums.</p>
<p>Memorizing wordlists will not help you in your life or on other tests-- WHY? Because you'll forget them if you don't constantly study them over and over again. This is the only reason I'm against massive memorization--they dont stick in your head for very long. </p>
<p>BTW, Nitinrao, I'm not a native speaker and I wasn't born in this country, so my vocabulary isnt that great either.</p>
<p>Not really. Granted you probably won't remember to use them in your own writing most of the time, but if you hear them in a sentence you will likely remember the definition after having pounded the word into your brain.</p>
<p>Nitinrao, this is a reprint from one of my old post from October 2003. Check the list of analogies and the list of words that had been reported as difficult by the CC community after the test. I hope you can see the chasm between the canned lists and what really shows up on the test. </p>
<p>The difficulty of the SAT does not stem from the use of a a difficult set of words but rather from arcanes usages, especially when flipping verbs and nouns. Think about the words: </p>
<p>AIR - to express your feelings
LOW - the sound a cow makes
SOUND - to measure the depth
TABLE - to delay
RANK - foul smell (like for a cigar) </p>
<p>Those are horrendous words for an average test taker but a walk in the park for a crossword fan. </p>
<p>Check the following analogies: </p>
<p>PEACH : FRUIT
cow : milk
orange : pee
apple : core
vegetable : garden
wheat : grain </p>
<p>MUSICIAN : SYMPHONY :
sculptor : studio
writer : agent
dancer : ballet
painter : subject:
vocalist : stage </p>
<p>FLASK : CONTAINER :
microscope : lens:
bandage : wound:
slide : specimen
liquid : bottle
scalpel : knife </p>
<p>ELONGATE : LENGTH :
estimate : number
steer : direction
amplify : volume
minimize : size
measure : weight </p>
<p>DEVOUR : INGEST
breathe : inhale
gulp : drink
touch : tickle
savor : chew
screech : utter </p>
<p>FARCE : COMICAL :
caricature : political
sequel : initial
parody : somber
scenario : theatrical
thriller : suspenseful </p>
<p>PLAYWRIGHT : DRAMA :
stenographer : transcript
actor : comedy
novelist : fiction
biographer : lifetime
celebrity : autograph </p>
<p>STOWAWAY : FARE
thief : money
employee : salary
spectator : admission
member : dues
squatter : rent </p>
<p>MAZE : LABYRINTHINE :
highway : congested
gymnasium : athletic
ruin : excavated
skyscraper : towering
subway : elevated </p>
<p>ANNEX : BUILDING :
postcript : letter
episode : series
homestretch : race
epilogue : afterthought
itinerary : voyage </p>
<p>PITTANCE : ALLOWANCE :
deduction : salary
dollop : dispenser
scarcity : demand
smidgen : portion
deficit : budget </p>
<p>TIRADE : DENOUNCE :
lecture : instruct
insult : apologize
epitaph : inscribe
homage : dishonor
demonstration : boycott </p>
<p>INDEFATIGABLE : TIRE :
infatuated : love
partisan : indoctrinate
empathetic : console
intransigent : compromise
meddlesome : pay </p>
<p>HEARING AID : EARS :
toothbrush : teeth
shampoo : hair
glasses : eyes
scissors : nails
shoes : feet </p>
<p>VERDICT : DECISION
proclamation : announcement
denunciation : transgression
debate : topic
proof : allegation
judgment : evidence </p>
<p>SURVEYOR : BOUNDARIES
censor : literature
geologist : fossils
felon : legality
appraiser : value
interrogator : questions </p>
<p>DESERTER : ARMY :
recruit : project
graduate : school
informant : report
dropout : society
turncoat : enemy </p>
<p>PAGEANTRY : SPECTACULAR :
revelry : gloomy
chivalry : gallant
impunity : harmful
equanimity : stressful
artistry : consummate </p>
<p>LISTLESS : VIGOR :
ruthless : cruelty
breathless : anticipation
dispirited : failure
disinterested : bias
disinclined : aversion </p>
<p>And finally, check this list: </p>
<p>a perspicacity
a scientist:experiment sleuth:investigation
a agility
a charlatan
a assess
a fiction
a oily
a sideshow
a silk
a scheme
a kidney
a harmonica
a figurine
a leviathan elephant
a gossip
a artist:sketch photographer:snapshot
sc sustain nourish
sc inimitable
sc autonomy
sc skulking
sc intermittent
sc soothe babies and mothers
sc mitigating
sc pique
sc vigilant
sc aversion
sc gaffe
sc profundity </p>
<p>Not convinced, take a look at a comparison of May 2003 and the Barrons' list:</p>
<p>As an example, if one would need to evaluate Barron's success in predicting words with a late test like the test of May 2003, what would the result be? </p>
<p>How many words appeared in both Barron's and the entire test -INCLUDING areas where the word had no bearing on the correct answer? The answer is 121 out of about 700 words on the test. It sounds great until you look at the words and start evaluating their "relative" difficulty. Should the vast majority of students who seek a good score on the SAT not know words like astute, adverse, amicable, and so forth? Removing the common words yield a much shorter list of ... 13 words. Here are the words of the shorter list: </p>
<p>callousness
dilatory
foible
gaffe
gibe
hubris
infinitesimal
morbidity
parochial
proselytizer
punctilious
quizzical
scurrilous </p>
<p>Incidentally, the May 2003 tests was a VERY good test for Barron's. For instance, the October 2003 contained fewer "Barron's" words but contained Leviathan that Barron's missed. </p>
<p>Anyhow, here is the full list of the Barron's words that appeared in May. Ask yourself if it would be worth to spend 70 hours to read 3500 words to end up with the following 121 words? How many did you know before taking the test? I know that I would gladly leave the list untouched as I would go through thousands of irrelevant words to find 121 words that I knew before opening the book! </p>
<p>abate
accessible
admonishing
adverse
amalgam
amicable
amplify
archipelago
arrogance
astral
astute
bait
callousness
capricious
caricature
clientele
collusion
comprehensive
concession
conciliatory
confined
conscientious
credulity
debilitated
defiant
dehydrate
dilatory
discord
distill
diverse
dupe
ebullient
elusive
embezzlement
empathy
engage
engrossed
entice
fa</p>
<p>AroW-
i disagree. If one plans getting into academic world in the future, big vocab must help. Also, SAT words aren't uncommon at all if you read quality magazines/newspapers like NYT, Time, Sports Illustrated, National Geographic, Scientific American, or whatever. Also, i believe one has to have big vocab in order to take GRE.</p>
<p>"The dictionary"</p>
<p>I am reading the dictionary. =)</p>
<p>Xiggi:
so what list do u prefer? do u still have ur list?can u post it?</p>
<p>But Xiggi, practice only takes you so far in verbal. Unlike math where it is very easy to get an 800 after some practice, verbal is much harder. I get all the easy and medium in analogies correct. But I miss those two hard questions at the end simply because I don't know the vocab. Even using the bridge elimination method works only so far. If you have no idea whatsoever about the stem words, how are crossing off weak bridges going to help you. Some answer choices have very strong bridges but are the exact opposite of the stem pair which makes them wrong but an attractive choice for an above average test taker (someone who consistently scores around 700).</p>
<p>Thats it, i am switching over to kaplan's words and starting from the letter i am at. is that a good coice???</p>
<p>LATIN. Period. Latin and any other languages are the best preparation for the Verbal, as is simple COMMON SENSE. Break the words up into their roots, prefixes and suffixes, and you should be fine. Many people who have problems with spelling seem to lack this "common sense" that I speak of. I got a 700 on the verbal. This is going to sound strange, but it's true. I had to go to the bathroom SO BADLY on the 1/2 hour reading-only section that I randomly guessed on the last six questions and ran straight to the bathroom. I ended up getting ONE analogy/sentence completion wrong, while I got SIX critical reading questions wrong. Took about seventy points off my verbal score... man, that makes me angry!</p>