Which Vocab Book Performed Best on the Wednesday 09 PSAT?

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
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<p>I thought it would be interesting to see which vocabulary book performed the best on the Wednesday 09 PSAT. First some disclaimers: This is a preliminary report. I did not take the Wednesday PSAT. I did read the entire CC thread and I tutored a couple of students who did take the test. Based upon these reports there were 13 agreed upon Level 3 - 5 words. Here they are: histrionic, emote, halcyon, onerous, munificent, perfunctory, avert, somber, wry, subtle, acute, incredulous, articulate.</p>

<p>Here are the results:</p>

<ol>
<li>Direct Hits: 400 words/ 8 hits/ 1 hit per 50 words</li>
<li>Rocket Review: 323 words/3 hits/1 hit per 107 words</li>
<li>Barron's Hot Words: 396 words/2 hits/1 hit per 198</li>
<li>Princeton Review's Hit Parade: 253 words/1 hit/1 hit per 253 words</li>
<li>Barron's Mini-Dictionary (24th edition): 3,500 words/11 hits/ 1 hit per 318 words</li>
</ol>

<p>I will try to stop by Border's and check out some other vocabulary books. It will be very interesting to see the PSAT when it is released.</p>

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<p>Preliminary Thoughts:</p>

<ol>
<li>Direct Hits turned in another outstanding performance. DH was especially strong on the hardest level 5 words with hits on HALCYON, WRY, and MUNIFICENT. Many CCers report that DH also had a large number of indirect hits. </li>
<li>Princeton Review’s Hit Parade is not performing well this fall. The Hit Parade only had two hits on the October SAT and just one hit (ONEROUS) on the Wednesday PSAT.</li>
<li>Barron’s Mini-Dictionary scored 11 hits. However, you had to memorize 318 words to get a hit. I’m always surprised when Barron’s misses a word. They did not have EMOTE or HALCYON.</li>
</ol>