Using only Magoosh's 1000 vocab words as prep?

[HYHY02]

Hi everyone,

 

I was just curious if anyone strictly used Magoosh to expand their vocab (as in their 1000 words from either the vocab builder or flash cards), and if so, if they felt it prepared them well enough for the GRE. I'm probably 2/3s through memorizing the 1000 words, but with my test in about 1.5 months, I was unsure if I should be adding any other vocab resources. I know Magoosh has posted even a couple of blog posts about various vocab prep material, but for the ones they recommended, they also noted that there was quite a bit of overlap, so I was considering of just sticking with the 1000 words from Magoosh. Thanks.

Edited July 29, 2015 by HYHY02

[eeee1923]

It's fine to use just Magoosh. Just remember to practice for the other parts of the verbal section (i.e. reading comprehension and critical reasoning). 

[java0008]

should be more than enough if you retain 75 percent. also check the word lists on memrise.com it is one of the best tool for memorizing the words

[mockturtle]

That's all I ever did to prepare for the verbal section, and it definitely served me well. However, that's honestly because it was clear that vocabulary was the only thing I needed to work on, so it obviously depends on what you personally need. But if you trust in your reading comp, then I say go for it!

[TakeruK]

I didn't use Magoosh, but another useful website (majortests I think?). However, I only memorized their 500 most commonly listed words and that was more than enough (the site had 1500 words but I just started with the most common ones and went as far as I could). I think it's far more important to memorize the most common words instead of just going for the largest total # of words. After all, you will probably only see like 50 words total in the real test and the "most common" words are "most common" for a reason

[Brent@GreenlightGRE]

When studying words, be sure to engage with each word in a variety of ways to help you memorize it.

For example, try to think of at least one synonym and one antonym for that word. 

Say the word aloud. Doing so requires multiple areas of your brain to participate, and activating different parts of your brain will lead to greater retention. 

 

We offer several other tips for memorizing GRE words in our free video: video #9 at http://www.greenlighttestprep.com/module/gre-sentence-equivalence 

 

Cheers, 

Brent - Greenlight Test Prep

[GREMasterEMPOWERRichC]

Hi HYHY02,

 

Since you're discussing one aspect of your studies, it's important to define how this one area of study is impacting your overall performance (and scores). 

 

Have you taken any FULL MST Tests recently? If so, then what were your scores (and how are you performing overall in the Verbal section?)?

 

In the bigger picture:

1) What is your score goal?

2) When are you taking the GRE?

3) When are you planning to apply to School?

 

GRE Masters aren't born, they're made,

Rich

[bunsenroses]

Just to add my two cents here. Yes, memorizing vocab will help, but I think just focusing on vocab is a mistake. The fill in the blank questions on the GRE seem to depend so much on context. For example, if you look at the GRE 2nd edition guide, many of the tougher examples involve widely understood words. What makes them tough is that many people are probably missing the contextual clues.