Word lists - same for old and new GRE?

[YaelRania]

Hey everyone,

Just a quick question: I am having serious problems with the GRE vocab for the verbal reasoning section (I'm not a native speaker, should have anticipated that...).

There are so many words I have never come across before, so I'm looking for a book to study the essential words from. Barron's has the "Essential words for the GRE", do you think it makes any difference that I'm taking the new exam? I could not find anything labelled "Words for the new GRE"

Does maybe anyone know of some reliable lists on the internet? I found quite a few, but I can't really judge if they have the relevant words, and are correct.

Thanks a lot!

Edit: I saw the post below about the importance of word lists and I understand that in the new format it's less important (yaaayyy for me), but I am still looking for anything to study/review from...

Edited July 31, 2011 by YaelRania

[e i j i]

I talked with a friend who works as a test prep tutor when I was making a decision whether to take the old or new format about this very question. For the new format, since there still are sentence completion exercises that require vocabulary, it still is beneficial to study up on a variety of words if that is not your strong point.

I am not entirely familiar with all of the new changes (I learned about the new format almost half a year ago).

I think if you need to brush up on vocabulary and you don't have a lot of time, maybe try some of those private testing company flashcards? I used Barron's Essential GRE words for the old format and it was really helpful too. There are a lot of sentence completion practices, but be apprised that there are about 80 sections to the book -- it takes a long time to get through everything.

[Safferz]

You'll definitely still need a strong vocabulary for the new sentence completion questions, so I suggest you pick up the Barron's Essential GRE Words book and start working through the lists. I've noticed a lot of the practice questions from my Barron's New GRE book still use a lot of the high frequency words from the old GRE.

[YaelRania]

Thanks a lot, ejip and Safferz! I think I'll then order the Essential Words from Barron's. I am a bit frustrated because I had always thought I had an at least decent English vocabulary, but guess even native speakers don't know some of the words. Anyway, thanks for the advice!

[aspiringhistorian]

The word lists are more or less the same, but also keep in mind that those are not necessarily the definitive pool of words that they can pick from. I would say that maybe a quarter of the vocabulary I was tested on was not in the books- spend time also looking at the etymological tricks! Good luck!

[sarakeet]

Another tip--probably obvious--but keep reading dense material and looking up every word you don't know. I'm a native speaker, but I've started doing this and suddenly realize there are a lot of words that I kind of new the meaning of, but didn't necessarily have a clear enough impression to use it in every possible context. A lot of these words haven't been in the Essential Words book either... Anyway fwiw I thought I was pretty well read but I don't know or don't feel completely comfortable with probably 20 or 25 percent of the Essential Words. Good luck!