Memorizing GRE vocab

[bsharpe269]

I am trying to do this right now to bring up my verbal score from 157 so hopefully low 160s.

 

There are SO many words. How did you memorize them all? How long did it take? Ive been working for about a month and still dont feel like I have made a dent in what I need to do. I have around 4 more months until id like to retake.

[Kleene]

My memory is mediocre at best and my time for prepping was rather limited too. There are indeed many words, so you need to prioritize. First of all, learn all the prefixes, suffixes and roots. Since many GRE words are constructed out of these parts, you learn a huge range of words just by memorizing these lists. It will also speed up the process of learning vocabulary. Afterwards, you start learning words. Please use lists of frequent words. All prep books have lists like these. Just start with all the lists of frequent words you can find and then work your way towards rarer words. Some books also have lists of otherwise interesting words; common mistakes and that sort of things. I used the appendixes of a number of prep books, all of which I found somewhere online. Eventually I got my score up to a 162 (as a non-native speaker), so it definitely worked.