GRE preparation - How to build your vocabulary

A guide to building your vocabulary for GRE

WORK IN PROGRESS...

For the GRE exam, probably the biggest challenge is to build your vocabulary. This is especially true for non-native English speakers ( like me).

The vocabulary involves learning about 4000+ new words. The real challenge is to remember them.

Watch out !! There are tons of recommendations of "Magic vocabulary building kits/softwares" and claims of - " How to learn 1000 words in a day" . Stay away from those!! There is really no shortcut. The only way to improve your vocabulary is to come up with an organized study schedule, apply them in real life, do more practice questions and revise, re-revise & re-revise words till your exam.

Step-by-step approach

Note: Give it about 2 months of time for building your vocabulary. GRE Math is not as tough as GMAT . So, if you have decent Math skills,trust me, though it sounds like a lot, learning the words is 60% of the battle done.

1. Start with reading the book Word Power Made Easy. There is no other book that helps you build your vocabulary and is actually interesting to read . This book is based on etymology and teaches you words based on root-words. Getting a grasp of this approach helps a lot in remembering words and deriving new words. Later in your study, even when you come across unfamiliar words, you will be able to attempt breaking up the word into root words and guessing a sensible meaning.
2. Start with the Barrons book - Barron's GRE with CD-ROM. Barrons has 50 wordlists of about 4000 words ordered alphabetically. The Barrons wordlists are trusted resources and a long time favourite among GRE students. It is the most comprehensive list of GRE words.

I suggest that you take a xerox copy of these wordlists. So that you can scribble, tick,cross on it rather than on the book. Also, it is easier to carry around.

Approach to study wordlists

1. Day 1 - Plan on doing 1 wordlist per day.
   Read thru the wordlist 1st round. Tick words you know.
2. Read the wordlist 2nd round and check each unfamiliar word. Read the example and see if that is clear. If it is not clear,check out one of the following online dictionaries or wikipedia (yes, wikipedia has great explanations)
   
   • https://www.merriam-webster.com/
   • https://www.thefreedictionary.com/
   • https://www.etymonline.com/
3. Flash Cards - My best friend
   Take notes and an example of this word in a flash card.
   Check out "How to make GRE Flashcards" https://www.ehow.com/how_4609404_make-flash-cards-right-way.html
4. Revise the flash cards as and when you get time on Day1.
5. Day 2 - Start with the flashcard of previous day(s), scramble it and see if you remember them. If you dont, keep it for further revision.
6. On Day 2, do the next wordlist and prepare flashcards for the new words, combine them with the set of flashcards you cant remember from Day1 and keep revising this.
7. Keep doing these steps till you are done with the wordlists and can retain all words.

Note: Barrons wordlists is the most comprehensive wordlist for GRE and I recommend those. However, if you have to cram, try the following wordlists -

1. Majortests.com (1500 words) https://majortests.com/word-lists/
2. Barrons high frequency words (333) - In the barrons book
3. The Princeton Review - Hit Parade Cracking the GRE with DVD
4. Kaplan wordlist
5. Nova wordlist