How To Master GRE Vocabulary | Expert Tips & Tricks

erricka here with props caller GRE here today to tell you how to master GRE vocab if you like this video subscribe for more great content and check us out at GRE drops color comm to learn more about what prep scholar GRE can do for you if your studying for the GRE you know how important a strong vocabulary is to your success on the verbal section text completion and sentence equivalence which directly tests the vocabulary knowledge make up about half of all verbal questions and that isn't taking into account the many reading comprehension passages and questions that feature difficult vocabulary that can impact comprehension but more than that based on prop scholar research we believe that nearly 50% of verbal questions tagged us hard by ETS test your vocabulary knowledge these questions often feature words that are considered low frequency or not regularly used in everyday life and known by few native English speakers and even fewer non-native speakers so how can we overcome this major hurdle to reaching your goal GRE score in this video we'll talk about the one thing more important on vocab questions than vocab itself how to guess the words meaning accurately most of the time if you are going to study vocab which words to study and how to study vocabulary words for understanding retention and application while text completion and sentence equivalents do test vocabulary many students are surprised to learn that this isn't the main thing they're testing the point of these questions is instead to interpret the meaning of a piece of text using the structure of the text to determine the relationships between its central ideas these relationships are what help us determine what goes in each blank so for instance if we see that the first sentence talks about the benefits of a new program then we get a however at the start of the second sentence we know that the second sentence will contrast the first so it will likely be about the drawbacks of that program similarly if the first part of a sentence talks about how scientists don't take the results of a study seriously then we get a because at the start of the second part of the sentence we know that the second part of the sentence will explain the reasons for the first part so it will likely outline why the study isn't credit now once we've determined how certain parts of the text relate to each other using transition words we can fill in the blanks accordingly to support those relationships at this point we're ready to make a prediction for what goes in each blank in our own words now this is a crucial step so don't skip it when we go into the answer choices without a prediction it's like walking into a field full of landmines with our eyes closed the answer choices are all traps and they're easy to fall into if we don't know what we're looking for so even a loose prediction like it's a positive word or the opposite of detailed will help us work through the answer choices right so what if you've broken down the relationships in a sentence made solid predictions for what should go into the blanks and you don't know what the answer choices me of course your first step should be process of elimination using the words you do know in some cases one of the words we do know is definitely right in other cases we know that all of the other words are wrong and can safely pick the word we don't know but what if we're stuck between multiple answer choices we just can't define this is where we start using strategies to guess meaning the first strategy is to use word routes the definition of many GRE vocabulary words can be traced back to common Greek Latin and other routes as we know the definition of the route we can find the definition of the word now if you already know some routes great but if you don't you don't have to memorize I need to use the strategy all you have to do is identify words with similar syllables in them for instance you may not know what populus means but you might recognize that it sounds like popular or population so you can guess that it has to do with a large number of people similarly you may not know what the word of the nine teams but you know that benign is used to describe a tumor that isn't cancerous so you can at least guess that it has a positive meaning the second strategy is to use prefixes many GRE vocabulary words are just words we know with one or two prefixes with defined meanings tagged on the front this means that if we know the meaning of the prefix we can define the vocabulary word for instance we may not know the word dispassionate but if we know that this is negative prefix and that passionate means having strong feelings we can guess that dispassionate means not having strong feelings again if you don't have these prefixes memorized not a problem you can use other words with the same prefix to guide you so if you didn't know what the dis and dispassionate means you could think about words like displeased or disagree to help you figure it out now of course these strategies aren't foolproof makers of the GRE know that students use these strategies and sometimes throw in words that have very different meanings than we might guess for instance we know that indefensible and invariable mean not defensible and not variable so we might guess that ingenious and invaluable mean not genius and not valuable but really they mean very genius and very valuable all right so while these strategies don't always work they are better than guessing blindly so if you're in a pinch with the word you don't know do your best to figure it out now of course just because there are more important things than vocabulary and because it's often easy to get around not knowing the words that doesn't mean that studying vocab is always a waste of time but for most people it is there are countless GRE vocabulary lists out there just do a quick google search and you'll find dozens of them unfortunately most of these lists are garbage they're inaccurate and unrealistic let's go through some of the common types of GRE vocab lists and what the problems with them are first the hundred word or fifty word list the problem it's too short to thoroughly prepare you for the GRE there are more than 100 vocabulary words on a single GRE exam and there is no guarantee that the specific 100 words on a given list will all show up even if the list is high quality you're still missing out on important vocabulary second the 900 word or 3,000 word list the problem you're unlikely to truly master so many words and you have no way of knowing which words are really important to memorize and practice working with a long list of words might feel comforting but it's the same as flipping through the dictionary and hoping you'll get lucky chances are you're not mastering the high frequency words most likely to show up on the GRE and third the random list of difficult words the problem the list is probably inaccurate it takes meticulous research and frequent updates to generate a list of GRE words that are actually likely to show up on the GRE a lack of methodology usually means that the list maker pulled a bunch of hard vocabulary words or words from the old Giri so how can you make sure that you're studying the right words one option is to make your own word list from the practice questions and practice tests you're using to study every time you reach a word you aren't sure of add it to your vocab list this ensures that you're studying words that are likely to appear on GRE questions and that you definitely don't know now of course this only works if you're using high-quality study materials but that's a topic for another video another option is you use a word list that you can trust to be accurate a prep scholar the word list used in our free GRE vocab course is based on careful analysis of official ETS materials as well as other popular and reputable word lists to identify the words that are most likely to appear on testing to learn more about the process we used to do this you can visit our blog using the links in the description but I can promise you it is very thorough and very time-consuming the resulting list includes the 300 most important words you will need to know for the Giri range from will appear likely to appear too may appear this means that even if you have a limited time line leading up to test a starting with the will appear words will get you as much benefit as possible in the time that you've F now even after you found a realistic helpful word list or made your own it's still just a list of words and definitions a good Giri vocabulary list alone is not enough let's go through some of the common mistakes people make when studying GRE vocabulary first readings straight down the word list reading through pages and pages of words can feel productive but it won't help your brain make the neural connections you need to remember the words long term you'll get through a lot of words without really understanding how to use any of them correctly number 2 flipping through flashcards over and over and over flashcards can be an effective study tool if and only if you use them correctly if you spend a lot of time making beautiful flashcards but flip through them like a word list you won't absorb any of the vocabulary any better than you would with the list it's simply not enough to help you ace the jury and three just memorizing definitions when studying vocabulary it can be tempting to just memorize where definitions correctly and move on however if you're preparing for the GRE learning words alone isn't enough you also need to understand how you see them on the Giri think about it this way when you memorize every math equation and assume you're going to ace every math question on the GRE quant section knowing equations is essential and memorizing definitions is necessary but the GRE tests how concepts are applied it won't help you to learn a bunch of words unless you know how to apply that knowledge now at prep scholar we use these principles to design a free course around our word list our approach is based on the latest research on effective study methods and our deep knowledge of the GRE so we're confident that the profs color vocabulary course will help you quickly learn key words and how to use them on the GRE now studying is most productive when it's distributed over digestible study sessions so the words in this course are broken out into bite-sized lessons to create convenient stopping points and promote long-term learning the lessons are presented in flashcard format to capture the benefits of immersive learning to help you actively master and recall the material every vocab lesson is followed by a quiz that tests how well you know each of the words you just studied now as a result of this design the words you study will actually stick with you until testing we also ensured that our course allows you to practice the vocabulary in the context of realistic GRE questions so each flashcard includes a realistic GRE sentence that uses the relevant vocabulary word to help you get used to seeing the words in the context of complex academic sentences like the ones you'll see on the real GRE then the quizzes all feature fill-in-the-blank questions that mirror the style of GRE text completion and sentence equivalence questions these questions require you to understand multiple vocabulary words in one sentence and work with vocab words as both right answers and wrong answers just like you'll see on the real GRE this means that as you study you're not just memorizing or you're learning how to use them on the jury now of course you can also apply all of these principles to your own word list or another word list that you found a good way to do this is to a self-administered short quizzes in which you're required to come up with a definition and a sentence for each word another good option is to keep a log of the problems containing these words later on you can come back to these questions if you really know your vocab words you should be able to answer them no problem and that's how you can master GRE vocab thanks again for watching and feel free to check us out at GRE have scholar com for more great GRE content and if you want to give our free GRE vocab course a try visit our blog at prep scholar comm slash GRE slash blog see you next time

Channel: PrepScholar GRE

Views: 191,995

Keywords: gre vocab, master gre vocab, gre vocabulary, gre verbal, best gre vocab, gre vocab prep, english vocab, gre prep, erika gre, gre prepscholar

Id: YHjFAJvQQlo

Length: 11min 53sec (713 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 17 2018