how many words did you memorize for the GRE?

[rileypep]

is 500 enough? or should i memorize more

[Nikki]

I think I memorized more, but it's a crap shoot either way. The first time I took the GRE I memorized fewer words, but saw more of the ones I learned on the test. The second time I memorized more, but saw less.

I would just prepare as best you can in the amount of time you have.

[liszt85]

I got a week for preparation for the GRE due to some hectic workload during the semester. What I did was I looked at the high frequency word list + lists of words starting with the vowels and some high frequency consonants (s,t, etc). I also looked at a blog which claimed to list words that appeared in the test that month as the words allegedly were repeated during the month but varied from month to month. One word actually appeared on my test from that monthly list. Since I had a very strong quant training right from school days, I didn't need preparation for that part. I did 2 quant practice tests. So plan your preparation according to your strengths/weaknesses.

[purplepepper]

i must have memorized at least 1000, but i work best this way, and i just memorize stuff well. saw only a handful of words that studied on the test, but because i had studied so much i was able to recognize the word/question patterns and it wasn't so much of a problem

[socialcomm]

Last year I was probably at close to 1,000 and I'm on the way to doing the same this year. I did fairly well on the verbal last year, it was my quant score that ended up being an issue. I didn't see many words on the GRE that I actually studied, but it's knowing what different parts of words meant that helped.

[belowthree]

Didn't study. Did fine.

[murpstud]

What did you get?

[Minnesotan]

If you get two word lists from reliable sources and learn them all, you should be as prepared as you can get in a limited time. If time is unlimited, just start going through Webster's New Collegiate one page at a time. =)

*EDIT: By the way, you all should go to FreeRice.com to study. That way you learn your GRE words and help feed starving people at the same time.

[Michelley262003]

If it was in the book, it was in my brain

[InUtero1994]

I got a week for preparation for the GRE due to some hectic workload during the semester. What I did was I looked at the high frequency word list + lists of words starting with the vowels and some high frequency consonants (s,t, etc). I also looked at a blog which claimed to list words that appeared in the test that month as the words allegedly were repeated during the month but varied from month to month. One word actually appeared on my test from that monthly list. Since I had a very strong quant training right from school days, I didn't need preparation for that part. I did 2 quant practice tests. So plan your preparation according to your strengths/weaknesses.

What blog is that? if you don't mind sharing...

[rising_star]

You were supposed to memorize words? LOL. I didn't memorize any.

[belowthree]

You were supposed to memorize words? LOL. I didn't memorize any.

Ever?

[rising_star]

Ever?

Not for the GRE. Seemed like a waste of time. I scored in the upper 80th percentile on verbal without memorizing words specifically for the GRE. I don't think I even did more than glance at the pages of words you should know.

[Dreams]

I memorized one word. It showed up on the GRE. All was good!

[Minnesotan]

I scored in the upper 80th percentile on verbal

I told you mine is bigger!

[rising_star]

I told you mine is bigger!

Dude, don't tempt me to delete your account. Hahaha, that's at least one thing (on here) that I can do and you can't!

[Minnesotan]

Dude, don't tempt me to delete your account. Hahaha, that's at least one thing (on here) that I can do and you can't!

Ha! Threats only reinforce the diagnosis of vocab envy!

Rising's going to go out and buy a Humvee, soon!

[Serric]

I half-heartedly memorized about a hundred or so, but I did it with Kaplan's system: look at grouping of words that mean criticism/falsehood/etc, memorize the "meaning" behind those words so you don't have to memorize each individual meaning. I also looked at the 'most frequently asked' word lists, but, overall, no more than a hundred. I scored a 640, so...felt it was a bit of a crapshoot.

[MaximKat]

Ok, one question that bugged me for months. Isn't verbal part extremely easy for native speakers? I mean, for my language, I can't really imagine words for which I can't at least guess their approximate meaning.

I learned no more than a hundred of words from Kaplan and scored 600. How can a native possibly score less than that?

[rising_star]

Ok, one question that bugged me for months. Isn't verbal part extremely easy for native speakers? I mean, for my language, I can't really imagine words for which I can't at least guess their approximate meaning.

I learned no more than a hundred of words from Kaplan and scored 600. How can a native possibly score less than that?

Umm, perhaps because the GRE includes hundreds of words that are rarely used, and often aren't even found in academic papers. I'm a native speaker and was a literature major in college. I got a 610 on verbal and a 6 on AW.

[purplepepper]

I can't really imagine words for which I can't at least guess their approximate meaning.

Yeah...English is funny like that.... Take a look at freerice.com and just try to get past the first few levels (they'll start you in the middle on level 30)....then perhaps you will answer your own question.

I mean I have actually never ever seen or heard the word "stook" before (among many many others.) hell. My computer doesn't even know it either as it tries to point out I've made a spelling error.

I'd be damned if someone could guess its approximate meaning without knowing the explicit definition.....unless you are fluent in Middle English or Middle Low German..

Yes. A great deal of words used on the GRE are rarely used. There is a reason why 600 is the 85th percentile.

[was1984]

English is rather unusual because it is derived from so many other languages. I don't know, but I assume the roots of Ukranian are not quite as complex. Beyond that, I think a lot of the GRE words are picked that don't have obvious Latin or Greek roots. Most people could figure those out. Most of the harder words on the GRE I would argue aren't even real English words, though I'm not remotely qualified as a linguist.

Beyond that, its a crapshoot. The fact that rising_star was a lit major and scored a 610 while I was a EE major and scored a 640 should illustrate that fairly well. It just depends on which words you get and if you happen to know them. On the official practice tests (or old tests) I scored anywhere between 550 and 730 depending on whether the words used were in my wheelhouse. The only way to "beat" the test is to spend hundreds of hours poring over word lists, and I for one wasn't willing to do that.

[Serric]

English is rather unusual because it is derived from so many other languages. I don't know, but I assume the roots of Ukranian are not quite as complex. Beyond that, I think a lot of the GRE words are picked that don't have obvious Latin or Greek roots. Most people could figure those out. Most of the harder words on the GRE I would argue aren't even real English words, though I'm not remotely qualified as a linguist.

Beyond that, its a crapshoot. The fact that rising_star was a lit major and scored a 610 while I was a EE major and scored a 640 should illustrate that fairly well. It just depends on which words you get and if you happen to know them. On the official practice tests (or old tests) I scored anywhere between 550 and 730 depending on whether the words used were in my wheelhouse. The only way to "beat" the test is to spend hundreds of hours poring over word lists, and I for one wasn't willing to do that.

I completely agree with was1984's sentiments. I've been an avid reader my entire life, have a fairly extensive vocabulary, and still didn't know the majority of the words they test you on. One example would be 'quixotic', which is a word that (I believe) was adapted into the English language due to Don Quixote. Another would be complaisant, which sounds like a variation of "complacent", but isn't. I can guarantee that, were you to ask most college students (even linguistics/English majors), 99% of them would look at you like you're crazy.

A good expression to describe them is, "That's a six-dollar word." One of the reasons I hated taking the GRE was because it was a complete crapshoot (I scored between 590 to 680 on various practice tests before getting an official 640), it had very little (arguably no) practical use, and it was rote memorization. I found it amusing that, as a prerequisite for pursuing higher education, you have to memorize and regurgitate useless factoids that you'll have no use for ever again.

[MaximKat]

I don't know, but I assume the roots of Ukranian are not quite as complex.

I meant Russian, not Ukrainian, but I see your point.

Another would be complaisant, which sounds like a variation of "complacent", but isn't.

That's funny, because, while I didn't know either of these words, my dictionary (English-Russian, not English-English) tries to convince me that they are synonyms.

[rogue]

was1984 said:

The only way to "beat" the test is to spend hundreds of hours poring over word lists, and I for one wasn't willing to do that.

I guess I'll be the uber nerd who confesses to doing this. I went through all the word lists in the Kaplan flashcard deck and the Princeton Review book, and I played Freerice religiously for two months, up to level 55. Did it pay off? Well, I got a 770 on the verbal section, but my time may have been better spent working on my SoP or doing something else. I knew almost every word they threw at me, but I was miffed that more of the words I studied weren't on the test. I did cram as many as I could into my AW essays, which probably made them pretty obnoxious to read. And now, two months later, I've probably forgotten half the words.