<p>Like most people I believed that Barron’s 3500 word list was invincible. Learn all 3500 words and you would be guaranteed hits on all the vocab questions. The only problem was that the 3500 word list was like climbing Mt Everest. A daunting challenge that would take fortitude and an iron will. For example, if you learned 25 words a day it would take 140 days to learn all 3500 words. I have to confess that I lacked both the time and the will. There had to be a better way. </p>
<p>I began studying the different vocab lists and books to see which ones were the most effective. My first surprise was to discover that Barron’s is not invincible. The Barron’s 3500 word list did not have unaffected, overwrought or unconventional for the March SAT; euphonious or forerunner for the May SAT; or mock and undaunted for the June SAT. Was the Mt. Everest of vocabulary just a mirage?</p>
<p>My second surprise was to discover Direct Hits Vocabulary. It is a new vocabulary book that was the top performer on the March, May and June SATs. The third surprise was that Direct Hits, PR’s Hit Parade and Rocket Review’s Core words had a combined total of just 600 words. Yet these 600 or so words performed almost as well as Barron’s. For example, on the March SAT they produced 17 hits the same as Barrons. On the May SAT they produced 13 hits just 5 less than Barrons. And on the June SAT they produced 16 hits just one less than Barrons. </p>
<p>So at 25 words a day you could learn all 600 of the Direct Hits, Hit Parade and Rocket Review Core Words in just 24 days. That beats 140 days!</p>
<p>Good advice. Only catch here is that memorizing 25 words a day waaay harder than what it sounds. Memorizing even 10 per day is a feat for most people (like me)</p>
<p>I really do not understand why anyone would waste their time with such word lists–sentence completions are usually pretty obvious if your vocabulary and general understanding of parts of speech is above average, and even if you are not certain of a specific word, process of elimination usually prevails.</p>
<p>Thx for sharing this strategy. So at 10 words a day I could learn all the words from Direct Hits, PR and RR in 60 days - Deal. Barron’s would take 350
days - No Deal.</p>
<p>Thanks for the heads up. I am not memorizing Barron’s but Testmaster’s big word list. I have a really good memory, so its not too bad. I can memorize a lot (like over 100) words a day. But I think I am going to focus a lot more on the other lists you mentioned. Thanks</p>
<p>mstrindcwys - here is a level 3 sentence completion from the May 08 SAT:</p>
<p>Celia Tomlinson personifies _____: she overcame poverty, language barriers, and discrimination to found, own, and operate her own engineering company.
A. Tenacity
B. Nonchalance
C. Circumspection
D. Expediency
E. Munificence</p>
<p>Lets say you studied and learned the 600 or so words from the combined Direct Hits, PR and RR lists. Good news - all three had Tenacity and you would also know Nonchalance, Circumspection, and Munificence. The only word you would not know would be Expediency. </p>
<p>Now lets say you used general understanding, parts of speech and process of elimination. How would you get this one right?</p>
<p>^^^
Good point. “Tenacious D” is a satirical rock band (ie “mock rock”). How would you make the jump from knowing the bands name to answering a question about a woman who overcame poverty, language barriers and discrimination?</p>
<p>The _____ of impact craters on Venus suggests that erosion may have smoothed its surface over the past billion years.</p>
<p>A. magnitude
B. panoply
C. spate
D. ruggedness
E. paucity</p>
<p>I believe you could use common sense to eliminate magnitude and ruggedness. But what about panoply, spate and paucity. Both Direct Hits and PR had paucity and Direct Hits also had spate. How would common sense have helped you decide among panoply, spate and paucity?</p>
<p>You should be able to determine that the impact craters are not ostensibly visible due to “erosion [that] may have smoothed its surface.” Hence, you can eliminate magnitude. The verb smooth is used, so you can eliminate ruggedness (why would the surface be rugged if erosion has smoothed it?). I hear the word panoply, and I think of the word monopoly, which implies ubiquity. Certainly the craters are not ubiquitous.</p>
<p>We are now left with spate and paucity. If you plug in spate for the sentence, it sounds odd. The -ity ending of paucity works better for the sentences, as it suggests a quality. Therefore, I would go with paucity.</p>
<p>Now, it would be slightly more difficult to do that process not knowing the meaning of the word paucity. However, I have to ask the question: how difficult of a word is ‘paucity?’ I simply would use the POE outlined above to reinforce my knowledge of the word paucity in this case.</p>
<p>As for the person who asked the question about how to make the connection between “Tenacious D” and tenacity, I think rock bands are all about this sense of rebellion and having “the balls to do something.” For a semi-comical band inclusive of Jack Black, an adjective along the lines of tenacity is fitting. And in the case of tenacity, I actually used this logic on a standardized test once (the memory of thinking of Jack Black to understand the meaning of tenacity has since permanently engraved into my mind the meaning of the word).</p>
<p>imo if ur willing to spend that much time to memorize 3500 words, why not just spend your time perfecting the other portions of the test. memorizing words would only get you the sentence completion part of the test (and you probably know like half of them to begin with), but if you spend that time perfecting everything else, a few wrong on the sentence completion part isn’t such a big deal</p>
<p>^^^
That is the whole point of this thread. You don’t have to memorize 3500 words. There is a better strategy. Direct Hits, PR’s Hit Parade and Rocket Review’s Core Words overlap like in a venn diagram. The three have a total of around 600 words. Learning these 600 words is almost as effective as learning the 3500 words in Barrons.</p>
<p>brendanww - panoply may sound like monopoly but that is all the two words have in common. Pan is a prefix meaning “all” and oply comes from the Greek word hopla meaning arms or armor. So a panoply is a full suit of armor or an impressive array. Your logic was imaginative but flawed. You got the right answer proving that luck counts. I think it is better to know what the words actually mean.</p>
<p>I actually knew what ‘paucity’ meant from the start. However, despite your critique, you only helped prove my point by showing how knowing the prefix ‘pan’ can help. If you can think of Pan-African Association and all the other Pan-something organizations, then the definition follows easily. Perhaps that is the reason the first word that popped into mind when I saw the word was ‘everywhere.’ Had I not known the definition of paucity, I am sure one way or another I would have found a link for explaining my instinctual definition of the word ‘panoply.’</p>
<p>“proving that luck counts” - I suppose a perfect score on the PSAT reading comp section and a perfect score for vocab questions on the SAT is luck?</p>
<p>I wouldn’t have responded with that last cheap shot, but the implications of your reply were both conceited and asinine. I was merely attempting to share a methodology which has clearly brought me success on the vocab portion of the test.</p>