<p>I was memorizing the Gruber's 3400 words, and it surprised me how un-SAT like some words were. I mean, are some of these words ever going to appear on a test. Why would a sentence comepletion have a bard(poet) as an answer? Why do I need to know that a bayou is a bog? I hardly believe CB would use the word bayou. And there are 100's of these strange words. Any input?</p>
<p>i personally don't like the gruber's list. i think the barron's list is a lot better and more accurate</p>
<p>Damn, I am already memorizing the Gruber's list. What if I also supplement the Barron's 4858 GRE words available online, will that include the 3500 barron's list? What should I do?</p>
<p>I don't know about the Barron's GRE list, but I've studied the 3500 one, Sparknotes' 1000, and am halfway through Testmasters' 2200(2006 edt). </p>
<p>You'll see rare words like bard, arroyo or nabob in each of the "big" lists. Though these words may rarely appear in a sentence-completion question, they might appear in the passages. </p>
<p>The 3500 list is awesome. Granted, like most lists it is somewhat limited in connotations, but it is wonderful because it has sample sentences unlike Testmasters' or probably Gruber's(not sure about the latter); however, you should also keep up with the recently published lists and with the mini-wordlists that CCers have compiled after taking the tests.</p>
<p>In my sense, you had better continue memorizing Gruber's or start TM's if you cannot find Barron's 3500. And, don't forget to look for alternative meanings to the ones that the list provides.</p>
<p>the major problems with these lists are that (1)the college board doesn't limit itself to any discernible inventory of words, and (2) only a certain number of words can appear on a given test anyhow.</p>
<p>the result is that you'll spend a lot of your time memorizing words that never appear on the test, and you'll almost certainly encounter words you haven't seen before when you take the test. this is why i recommend not memorizing vocabulary.</p>
<p>i realize that you guys aren't all native speakers, and you want to memorize some english vocabulary to improve your chances. i can see how that makes sense to you. but if that's what you want to do, memorizing a bunch of (probably) useless words like "bayou" is just going to be a part of the process, unfortunately.</p>
<p>Actually, memorizing vocab and reading will help build a better reading/comprehending machine. And frankly, a better machine can be better at any passage. It is sad that only a tiny percentage of the words one memorizes may appear; nonetheless, no other approach seems that fruitful.</p>
<p>No matter how hard and passionately one studies the patterns and word roots, the test can be merciless here and there. Sometimes the passages seem very dense, with a series of unknown words; other times, looking for something "positive", you end up choosing vindictive after "scrutinizing the roots/suffix/prefix" because you know that vindicate is something related to exoneration and the two words-vindicate, vindictive- should definitely be related and positive.</p>
<p>Its true, for us native speakers we cant really get the feeling of an unknown word. Memorizing is very inefficient but it is the best I can do for myself. I have tried to feel the word, but I end up getting one wrong on the SCs. That is 3 Q's wrong that are better used as a clearance for hard passage questions- yes it is silly of me to expect an 800 as an ESL student, but somehow I think it is possible.</p>
<p>don't get me wrong--go for the memorization if you want. i wasn't trying to talk you out of it. i'm just saying that a part of memorization is necessarily going to be wasted effort. it can't be avoided.</p>
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<p>A bayou is not a bog, it is a bayou. It is sort of a swamp, and sort of a wetland and sort of an inlet, but not exactly any of those, but is a well-known term to anyone who lives in Mississippi, Louisiana, or who has read any Faulkner or Tennessee Williams.</p>
<p>Both bard and bayou are words that pop up in normal intelligent conversation in many part of the US.</p>
<p>For SAT purposes, really all I would need to know is that bayou pertains to some kind of water pool, or waterway. Calling it a bog will suffice for the SCs</p>
<p>Don't you guys study vocabulary in school.</p>
<p>On the first SAT I took, my sentence completions were perfect. Just somewhere along the road, I screwed up the passages.</p>
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<p>I would assume you expect to have a life after taking the SAT. Calling a bayou a bog results in you not understanding the meaning of two words.</p>
<p>What if bayou comes up in a reading passage? In an essay? Job interview? Same for bog.</p>
<p>Arroyo is a word that is in common use in a significantly large portion of the country. An no, an arroyo is not the same thing as a bayou.</p>
<p>The purpose of learning words is to be educated. So you can express yourself succinctly when you want your opinion heard. Nobody will care whether you got a 720 or a 760 or a 600 on your SAT for 80% of your life. People will care if you are articulate and can express yourself.</p>
<p>Don't set the bar so low that all you need to do with a word is have a vague idea of what it means so you can answer a sentence completion.</p>
<p>The average education person know anywhere from 20,000 to 65,000 words, depending on how "word" is defined and who you ask. Most "complete" dictionaries contain about half a million definitions. An average person uses roughly 2,000 to 10,000 words every week, again depending on who you ask.</p>
<p>Expose yourself to new words and understand them in the context of reading, speaking and writing on an educated level, and you won't have to worry about remembering the meaning of a word on the December SAT that you memorized -- and forgot -- for the October SAT.</p>
<p>I agree with you. For actually increasing my knowledge of English and the vocabulary I plan on reading many classics and subscribing to magazines. But for now, as you can tell, time is short, so I have to rely on rote memorization of general definitions. But I agree, there is a life after the SAT, and I plan on educating myself more, but by reading. I am not memorizing these words so I can claim I became more educated, no, I am only memorizing them now to get past this SAT hurdle.</p>
<p>Same here...</p>
<p>an important distinction, guys, and a good thing to remember. well done.</p>