<p>Thanks for the reply xitammarg</p>
<ol>
<li><p>How would one learn these inherent affixes that English speakers are supposed to know? I'm not a native speaker, though I did learn English quite early in my life. Unfortunately, it seems I don't know many of the obvious roots and affixes. </p></li>
<li><p>Judging by the average rate, would 2 months be enough to master your approach? Suppose one puts in 1 hour a day</p></li>
</ol>
<p>
[quote]
compare this approach with learning the 1000 sparknotes words available here:</p>
<p><a href="http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache%5B/url%5D">http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache</a>... nk&cd=1&gl=us</p>
<p>that list doesn't have the words "inscrutable" or "histrionics" in it.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>But the other 300 word list I am also memorizing does have inscrutable. Thus I just got the answer right. And for the love of God, stop posting 10 paragraph responses when 3 sentences would have done.</p>
<p>the blue book even says that the SAT will contain questions that require you to know the definition of a word without context. Take "ascetic" for example. There is no strategy other than memorization that will give you the meaning of this word. And it is a common SAT word. How about "reticent"- very common as well. Those english prefixes are more of guidelines rather than rules. You might think the "-ic" implies some sort of bitter/nasty/harsh meaning, but it doesn't. You might think "reti-" implies something related to the eye, but it doesn't in this case. And "inscrutable" means difficult to understand. Not even closely related to "screw" OR "scrutiny"- you just missed 1 question on the CR. Scrutiny implies close observation. So you might have thought the definition was "not able to be observed", which is incorrect.</p>
<p>I think the best strategy is memorization. Attempting to use phonetics/prefixes/suffixes is too unreliable. Trying to learn by reading novels is too slow and not effective for "skip words you don't know" readers- like me. I am memorizing ~1300 words just to get the last 2 problems on the sentence completions. The first 8 problems are easy anyways. There simply is too many words where all of the above strategies will not work on. English is riddled with exceptions - try conjugating "go"...went, gone, going, has gone, is going, will go. </p>
<p>
[quote]
i've <em>always</em> advised people not to memorize vocabulary. the results have been positive.
[/quote]
There is no way they were able to nail the CR without some form of memorization.</p>
<p>And I personally think xiggi is way over-hyped. He just took what PR said and says the exact opposite. If he was so good, he would have gotten a perfect score. Or he just says the obvious, such as taking the first practice tests with unlimited time.</p>
<p>Although many people who are against memorizing vocab words, it does work. </p>
<p>Example. From memorizing about 350 SAT words before I took my first SAT, I'd say it helped me on about 5 questions. Now 5 questions on CR is about 60 points. Lets say that from studying those 350 words, my CR score raised from a 640 to a 700. That is def worth it. Even if the words aren't the answers, eliminated a choice might be extremely helpful. For example.</p>
<p>People said that Mikey led a very ___ life, he was always showing off his wealth.</p>
<p>A) Ascetic
B) Boring
C) Ostentatious
D) Ominous
E) Nefarious</p>
<p>Most people here could figure out that BDE are wrong. By knowing that leading an Ascetic life is oppisite of what the blank is describing (by memorizing vocab) they could figure out the answer is C w/o even knowing what Ostentatious meant. </p>
<p>Memorizing vocab works. 1 hr each day for 2 months before an SAT will increase your score dramatically.</p>
<p>I didn't know what C meant but used POE as well to know it was right. Although I have heard it somewhere before with a "flamboyant" context.</p>
<p>And SAT does reuse words constantly. Thus memorizing concentrated, computer analyzed lists can only help. Except for PR's WordSmart. I have no idea what crack their computer was smoking cause their "Hit Parade" missed 4 words in a row.</p>
<p>NervesOfJelly: xitammarg's long descriptions are more helpful than mere 3 line comments.</p>
<p>Not literally 3 lines...just asking for a reader's digest version. I think he used 1 paragraph to talk about soccer.</p>
<p>hi amu,</p>
<p>it's going to be harder for a non-native speaker, but this is true of any test. i could give you some advice about preparing in this situation, but it would be a lot less certain--your situation will be impacted by your native language, your proficiency in any romance languages you might know, and, of course, your familiarity with standard american english. how long do you have until you take the test? in general, i'd say 2 months is enough time for anybody to learn anything related to the SAT if they approach the problem correctly. i should also say that your written english seems very good, just to judge from this thread. how much reading do you do in american english? do you watch any american english news programming or anything like that? i'm just trying to get an idea of your level of proficiency and comfort.</p>
<p>@nervesofjelly-- i'm not interested in getting into an argument with you. if you feel like memorizing words, go for it. if everybody who reads this feels like memorizing words, they can go for it, too. i'm only trying to answer the questions amu is asking (and i suspect other people might be wondering about as well). if you don't want to read a ten-paragraph answer, do us both a favor and skip my posts.</p>
<p>i'm going to respond to your earlier post, but not because i want to change your mind. i'm only writing this for the benefit of other readers, to set straight a few of the points you made.</p>
<p>so, in the order you raised your points:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>actually, knowing the meaning of the word "inscrutable" won't let you answer the sc item in question correctly, because it wasn't the correct answer to the question. this is exactly my point: you don't need to know all the words to answer a question correctly. further, no matter how much memorization you do, you're extremely likely to come across a word you haven't memorized.</p></li>
<li><p>you didn't provide a blue-book citation for the idea that the blue book says you can't use context, so i can't look it up, but the blue book says a lot of things about the SAT that aren't true. one example is the essay-grading rubric that essay-graders say they don't use to grade the essays. another example is the guessing strategy on page 15. i could go on.</p></li>
<li><p>you mention words like "ascetic" and "reticent" and say that "there is no strategy other than memorization that will give you the meaning of [these words]." i have to disagree with that, since i never memorized either word, but i know what they mean. but, again, this misses the point: no SAT question will absolutely require you to know either word. there are at least four other answer choices in any question, and each has at least one word in it. my strategy is focused entirely on answering SAT questions correctly, while yours seems to be focused on learning dictionary definitions of words. again, i'm not trying to convince you not to memorize anything. i'm just pointing out that the objection that you won't <em>know the meanings of the words</em> doesn't bother me at all, because the SAT rewards you for <em>bubbling the correct answer choice</em>, not necessarily <em>knowing what the correct answer choice means</em>. if you can get to the right answer without knowing its definition, the SAT can't tell the difference.</p></li>
<li><p>"-ic" never means anything negative; it's a suffix that indicates an adjectival usage. i can't imagine why a person would confuse the suffix "-ic" with the exclamation "ick," if that's what you were getting at. while "inscrutable" clearly has nothing to do with "screw," that's not the point--the point is to try to find <em>anything</em> in an answer choice that seems as though it could relate in <em>any way</em> to the prompt sentence. that's a first step. it works because of the way the SAT is designed; if the design were otherwise, this strategy would be no good.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>4(a). for what it's worth, both "scrutiny" and "inscrutable" come from the same root:</p>
<p>but i want to stress that you don't need to know that to use my approach.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>the conjugation of the verb "to go" never appears in an sc question. nor does any conjugation. irregular forms are almost always either everyday words, which don't evolve with the rest of the language because their constant usage keeps them fresh, or archaic, monosyllabic words (which, because of the test's design, can't appear in SAT sc questions). i'm not sure i understand your point here.</p></li>
<li><p>you wrote, "There is no way they were able to nail the CR without some form of memorization." this is absurd. not only did they do it, but i've done it as well. in fact, i've never met a person who memorized vocab words and <em>did</em> nail the verbal section. i'm sure there are a few of them out there, of course, but i've never shaken hands with one.</p></li>
<li><p>xiggi knows more about standardized testing than anybody i've ever run into. you can disagree with him if you want, of course. the measure of a coach isn't what the coach achieves on his own, but what his players achieve. similarly, you should judge xiggi's method by the results its followers attain, not by xiggi's own results. on the other hand, if you demand a perfect score, how does it not matter to you that i've scored 800 on SAT verbal sections multiple times? if high scores make a person's statements valid, why aren't my statements valid?</p></li>
<li><p>how can you say, on the one hand, that the SAT uses words consistently, and that the sparknotes list and the pr list are missing words on <em>old</em> SAT's? if the SAT uses words consistently, why does Barron's need to update its list from time to time? if lists can't even include every word that's already appeared on the current SAT, how can you trust them to contain every word that will appear on future test days?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>like i said before, i'm not interested in arguing with you, or in changing your mind. if you want to memorize lists, more power to you. but it isn't the case that you'd need to know the meaning of any particular word to score an 800, or that it's impossible to score an 800 without memorizing, or that word lists are infallible.</p>
<p>I am using the conjugation of "go" to point out that english is riddled with exceptions to "rules" such as prefixes, suffixes, phonetics, etc.. CB isn't going to flip to a random page of the dictionary to pick words for its tests. To quote them roughly "these are words that a college level student should be familiar with". That means that they can only use a select few words- the sky isn't the limit. But, this is not a screaming match, so I will continue on with my plan and let everyone know what my CR score is.</p>
<p>And yes, it isn't IMPOSSIBLE to get an 800 without memorization, but memorization makes it a whole lot easier to attain. Imagine getting to a question with 5 words that you have never seen before. Now you think to yourself "this word sounds like such and such and has such and such prefix, which might also mean such and such. God how much time do I have left. Ok, C has a 70% chance of being right so I will go with that". Compare that to "hey, I know what 4 of these words mean, and this one seems to fit perfectly".</p>
<p>Oh, and you only need to know 80% of the words on the test to get the right answer for the sc sections, which I am sure Sparknotes has covered.</p>
<p>If you think about it in retrospect, we are only talking about different strategies for 6 questions on the entire test that require more than common knowledge to answer.</p>
<p>Hi xitammarg,</p>
<p>I'm acquainted with French (Which is my third language) linguistically. I've lived in North America a good chunk of my life, so I know English. However, I'm poor at spelling complex words. The reason my spelling is good right now is due to the fact that most of these words are pretty simple. Obviously, spelling is not needed for the SAT but I'm just giving you some background. I do 'think' in English most of the time so that should help my proficiency (For example, I had to look at the spelling of 'proficiency' once in order to write it. Although all the other words in this post I knew thoroughly). I love reading but never developed a habit, which I deeply regret. As a side note, since you have a degree in a language-related major, do you feel if I start a reading habit now I would eventually improve my English or do you feel that it's quite late to start.</p>
<p>I am planning to take the October SAT. I could take the one in November as well but I'm worried that since school would have started, I would have lost more skill in one month than gained. Plus, waiting till the last moment could be dangerous considering it will be my first time taking the real SAT. As a side note, do you feel Kaplan's pratice test results are inflated or deflated?</p>
<p>I regret not starting SAT prep earlier. Do you think I've blown my chance at a top score? As another side note, here are my Kaplan pratice test results. Remember a few things, however. I didn't try at all but and was appalled (sp?) by my instructor. Secondly notice the pattern in the test results. Thirdly, I'm the type of person that has confidence and can increase results "if I get into it," similar to many others.</p>
<p>Here are the Kaplan test results in chronological order:</p>
<p>Jan 20. 1820 (M 590, W 650, Essay 12, CR 580)
Feb 3. 1680 (M 620, W 580, Essay 6 (See the weird drop in essay?), CR 480 (wow @ CR))
Feb 13. 1840 (M 720 (Smile @ Math), W 620, Essay 8, CR 500)
March 8. 1910 (M 650, W 660, Essay Unknown Score, CR 600)</p>
<p>Keep in mind the above are from 4 Kaplan pratice test. All dates are in 2007.
You can tell I go up and down. I don't think I'm incompetent but rather have confidence I can improve. I can feel how my results above are not even close to my real abilities.</p>
<p>The above test results are from a Kaplan class I took. As a side note, the instructor was seriously like a robot and read off the ~ 20$ book. I don't even count the class as having started SAT prep due to the circumstances. So as far as real SAT prep goes, I've actually started 2-3 days ago. I'm strong in Math, medium in writing, and weak in Critical reading. Sometimes my test scores don't reflect this. Probably because I haven't done much real prep and secondly because I've never take a complete SAT real under timed conditions. My safety goal is to get 2000. My realistic goal is to get 2100. My reach goal is to get 2200-2300 (Best would be: M 800 W 750 CR 750)</p>
<p>[CON'T from above]</p>
<p>xitammarg:</p>
<p>One other thing I want to mention: I haven't taken High School Geometry. I switched schools in the middle of high school. My old school had general math classes. In my new school I went straight into H Algebra 2 and then pre-cal the year after. I obviously know certain things from the general math classes but dramatically less than all other test takers. All I know is a triangle's interior angles add up to 180... However, I'm a good learner, especially when it comes to math.</p>
<p>One other thing: the materials I have available are: Blue book, PR's Cracking the SAT, Kaplan's package that came with the course (book, vocab cards, math cards, writing cards, etc...)</p>
<p>Lastly, sorry for all the unnumbered questions in my posts...Why oh why is there a 20 minute limit on editing?! I'd appreciate if you could number them yourself and I'd find the matching questions</p>
<p>Geometry is fairly important on the SAT, but it isn't the end-all. Kaplan books, from what I hear, are nothing more than tree killers because they are so easy and unrealistic.</p>
<p>NevesOfJelly: It's possible Kaplan books and kaplan tests are different in their easiness</p>
<p>My aim is to memorize the dictionary. I started two weeks ago and I'm at aardvark. </p>
<p>Actually, my vocab plan this summer is to read (Crime and Punishment, The Grapes of Wrath, Night, It's Greek to Me, and Hardball) and do CB's daily SAT question (vocab comes up once every 3 days).</p>
<p>nerves, word smart is bad? ahh, i have been listening to the audio for a few days now...should i study the 1000 most common words list?</p>
<p>Wasn't there a movie with Keanna Reaves (if that is how you spell it) where black kids were playing little league that was called Hardball. I also recommend you read Wuthering Heights cuz it has 700 SAT vocab words in it. I am not sure how much Night will help you though. Some girl gave a "book report" on it in history.</p>
<p>Yes, word smart sucks compared to the 1000 most common. I randomly picked 4 vocab words from a real SAT and it was no where to be found in the entire book. Whereas I picked 8 and all but 1 wasn't in the Sparknotes 1000. But that 1 words was in my paper study book ;)</p>
<p>just a quick comment: for all of you who say that memorizing word lists will only help you on past SATs and not future ones, well thats not enterily true because CB reuses questions (its been proved and they even say they do) thus they reuse vocab words. Hence, the words should at least appear on the sat to SOME extent.</p>
<p>Just a comment :)</p>
<ul>
<li>those are the books from my summer reading list<br></li>
</ul>
<p>I've read Night before, and its vocab is pretty complex. Hardball is a book by Chris Matthews.</p>