GRE vocab preparation

[Atkum]

How is everyone preparing their vocabulary for the new GRE and how extensive should the preparation be for the new GRE. I have the official book from the ETS and a book from Kaplan, should I also buy Barron's ?

[bigant]

You can go through wordlists and suchlike, and they are helpful, but more from the perspective of knowing the kinds of words that show up in the test. My suggestion is to read non-stop and check the dictionary for meanings of words you don't know. This way is better because you will also see the context in which the words are used.

[fullofpink]

The back of my new Kaplan book had the 500 top words arranged by synonyms. This helped out TREMENDOUSLY. If I had a blank to fill in and I knew what the generic word should be ("interesting," "inquisitive," "boring" "bad"), even if I didn't know the definitions of all the suggested answers, at least I knew if they would fit in this category by meaning. Loved it.

The hardest part of the verbal section was the reading comprehension portion. Some of the examples they give are very convoluted and poorly written/organized, so it's not so much reading comprehension as much as reading while solving a rubix cube in a limited amount of time.

Edited September 23, 2011 by fullofpink

[gellert]

Barron's is going to be the best book for vocabulary, hands-down. However, keep in mind that it's a lot easier to learn vocab in context than it is by just memorizing words. I recommend googling words you aren't 100% sure on and then reading online text that uses those words. That way you can get a sense for what the appropriate use of a word is in a sentence (very important for the revised format!) and any subtler connotations its use might have. (For example, the noun "malcontent" has a very different connotation in context than "insurgent" or "rebel," though they share the same definition.)

[Atkum]

Barron's is going to be the best book for vocabulary, hands-down. However, keep in mind that it's a lot easier to learn vocab in context than it is by just memorizing words. I recommend googling words you aren't 100% sure on and then reading online text that uses those words. That way you can get a sense for what the appropriate use of a word is in a sentence (very important for the revised format!) and any subtler connotations its use might have. (For example, the noun "malcontent" has a very different connotation in context than "insurgent" or "rebel," though they share the same definition.)

Gellert,

when you say Barron's is the best book to prepare for vocab do you mean the book with the top 500 words or is there any other book, and did you recently take the new GRE?

[Atkum]

You can go through wordlists and suchlike, and they are helpful, but more from the perspective of knowing the kinds of words that show up in the test. My suggestion is to read non-stop and check the dictionary for meanings of words you don't know. This way is better because you will also see the context in which the words are used.

Bigant,

Is there any specific material that I should be reading or do you mean keep reading in general??

[habanero]

If you only have a set amount of time, I'd work on reading comprehension over memorizing lots of words. I memorized a million words off of Kaplan and Barron and NONE of them were on my exam. The RC skills I learned really paid off--my range was 740-800 (99th percentile). My vocabulary is extensive normally, so you might take this advice with a grain of salt.

[resource]

The Barron's, ETS, and Kaplan's books all have a lot of overlap, so I think any one of them individually is good. Also, there are a lot of free word lists on the internet. They are easy enough to copy/paste into excel to study. Lastly, I downloaded the Kaplan GRE vocab app for my droid (I think there are others available for iPhones). It had 500 words, and worked great. I was able to study whenever there was downtime and I had my phone on me. I would definitely recommend an app like this.

[gellert]

Gellert,

when you say Barron's is the best book to prepare for vocab do you mean the book with the top 500 words or is there any other book, and did you recently take the new GRE?

I mean that I saw many words from Barron's on the (old) GRE (on which I made a 730V), and the words Barron's chose were easily five times as challenging as the ones in Kaplan. Also, Barron's has many MORE words than Kaplan, if you've already mastered the top 500. I suppose it depends on what level you're beginning at. If you don't know many GRE words, might want to begin with Kaplan. If you're an old hand at vocab, go to Barron's. I also recommend getting any GRE vocab flashcard program for your phone or iPod; I found it very helpful to be able to study on the go.

Edited September 26, 2011 by gellert

[bigant]

Bigant,

Is there any specific material that I should be reading or do you mean keep reading in general??

One site I suggest is http://longform.org/

As the name indicates they have many long, non-fiction articles on a wide variety of subjects. You could come across words for which you may have to look up the meaning, so that would help with vocabulary preparation. The articles require concentration and that always helps with test preparation.

[Atkum]

One site I suggest is http://longform.org/

As the name indicates they have many long, non-fiction articles on a wide variety of subjects. You could come across words for which you may have to look up the meaning, so that would help with vocabulary preparation. The articles require concentration and that always helps with test preparation.

Thanks Bigant, I actually found the site quite interesting. I have been reading other books as well. Let's hope that helps me out.