Where can I find good vocabulary list for the SAT?
Quizlet
don’t bother with memorizing long lists of vocab words. I’d say out of the roughly 70 CR questions, only 25 or so have to do with vocab. usually, the same core list of 200 words or so appears in the sentence completion questions, so my advice is to go through practice CR sections from the CB practice tests, and commit to memory any words in any of the answer choices with which you are not familiar.
Man, I disagree with @normanxi very strenuously. 25 of 70 questions directly test vocab–that’s a HUGE percentage of the Q’s and represents a TON of points (around 300 points). But just as importantly, virtually every question tests vocab indirectly–after all, we know most answers are paraphrased from lines in the passages, and paraphrase means “the same idea in different words,” so you have to know *different words/i to solve those questions. Not to mention tone Qs, whose answers are always vocab words…I could go on and on.
As for the claim that the same 200 words appear over and over again, well, that’s dangerously misinformed. Any cursory glance over the past exams will reveal it to be untrue.
Flashcards.
Make 'em or buy 'em.
Or use Quizlet, which makes “'em” for you.
I mean…I got a 2400 so I’m not wrong.
I have 4-8 students a year get 2400, @normanxi. But congrats to you; you obviously had a well-developed vocabulary that rendered extensive memorization unnecessary for you. That’s not the case for most students, including the OP, most likely.
I had a PSAT prep book that had around 200 “must-know” vocab words in them. I saw most of them on almost all of the practice tests I took, and most of the words from my real SAT appeared in that book.
So what is this magical PSAT prep book if you don’t mind sharing?
I’m pretty sure it was just the Princeton Review PSAT book
thx
anytime
Haha == here we go again!
There is NO question that having a better vocabulary represents a solid help on the SAT. The questions are
- How to best maximize one's knowledge
- Is studying vocab essential
- Are there better methods
My take based on spending much too much time on this is that the dumbest methods include relying on third party flash cards and borrowing a well-known lists such as Barron’s bastardized GRE list.
All in all, the ROI on spending (I’d say wasting) time on collating 50 X 70 words and memorizing them without the appropriate context is extremely low.
Do you want a list of words collated from the … past tests? Well, why not working through tests and work on BOTH the meaning of strange words AND on the … correct techniques for CR and writing. The techniques account for anywhere between 80 and 99 percent of the success. The “vocab” for very little, except for students who have an incredibly poor command of English and are drilled in the art of rote memorization.
On that latter part, I have no problems believing that list of words work in the environment of Marvin100, and that the geographical limitations play a huge role.
"My take based on spending much too much time on this is that the dumbest methods include relying on third party flash cards and borrowing a well-known lists such as Barron’s bastardized GRE list.
All in all, the ROI on spending (I’d say wasting) time on collating 50 X 70 words and memorizing them without the appropriate context is extremely low."
XIGGI THANK YOU
ROI isn’t a very useful metric, imo, since most high school students spend a lot of time watching TV and playing video games, or at least can spare a few hundred hours of vacation time without any great loss. Of course, if your time is very scarce and valuable, or if your college admission ambitions are relatively modest, then the gains from any study activity might not be worth the time to you, but in a vacuum, ROI makes little sense.
I know that for students I’ve worked with (2-3 hundred a year since '02, some with low English fluency but many with native fluency, some with lots of experience with rote memorization, some with little to none, but all of whom want to maximize their college admissions options), nothing else provides as easy improvement as does studying good vocab lists. Students in the 300s or 400s (typically very low fluency) can reliably (as in: invariably) get into the 600s in CR; students in the 500s can get into the 700s; and students in the 600s can compete for a perfect 800.
I also know that, for instance, if I had a 640 in CR and still missed some sentcoms and vocab-related passage questions, I’d want to learn the vocab and make those mistakes go away so I’d never miss any questions because of vocab ever again, and since I’ve been doing this for a living for a long time, I know exactly how attainable that goal is. In some ways, vocab in CR is like numbers in math–can you imagine trying to solve a math test without knowing all the numbers? Well when you try to read passages and solve CR questions without knowing the words (or the vast majority of them), you’re doing something similar–you have to guess what words mean, what sentences mean, and, often, what answers mean. Passages are made of words, after all.
When I get a class of Exeter or St. Paul’s students who are all already in the 700s, I almost invariably see that they still miss a sentcom or three, which indicates that at least another two or three of their errors are vocab-related as well. When they learn the vocab, their score range is 780-800. When I get a kid with a 340, I know that kid has no hope of understanding the passages until she learns a couple thousand words, and when she does, she’s invariably in the 600s.
I respect @xiggi’s point of view a lot and he’s done a great deal to help a lot of people on this forum. I also understand his reasoning and get why it’s appealing. But my data and experience say otherwise.
Let’s look at some “types” of students (highly reductive, I know, but just for simplicity’s sake–this comment is looong already!):
- Low fluency international
- Mediocre reader
- Strong reader
Type 1 obviously needs to learn words. As my Spanish teacher in high school told me, “vocabulario es necesario para hablar una idioma.” This type of student needs everything, of course, but vocab is an easy and reliable starting point, and with limited time, it can do wonders. I don’t get many students like this, but I’ve seen dozens of students go from the 300s to the 600s with virtually only vocab, after all, and that score jump is life-changing.
Type 2: it turns out that it’s way easier (and faster) to learn thousands of words than it is to read the hundreds of books necessary to become a very strong reader. Of course there are methods and techniques to help this student become a better SAT CR reader as well, but without mastering vocab, her ceiling is unlikely to ever reach 750, which, I believe, should be every student’s goal (except those whose fluency issues make it impossible in the time frame of two years of high school).
Type 3 students can sometimes (like @normanxi !) get 750-800 on the virtue of their excellent reading skills and existing, organically-developed vocab. If they can, they should do so and then call it a day. But they usually find that some tests have words they know and others have words they don’t know, and there’s always the risk that they’ll underachieve on the exam unless they’re fully confident in their vocabulary. I really hate it when I see a kid miss her 750+ because of a few vocab questions–vocab is so easily learned, so un-reliant on “intelligence” or “skill” that anyone can learn it, anyone can master it, and “smart” kids shouldn’t take it for granted if they want to make sure they’ll hit their mark.
Every student is different, and most students don’t have the discipline or inclination to spend a few hundred hours learning 200+ vocab words during their summer vacation, but for students who want to ensure that they get their best possible score–students of all skill levels!–I know that vocab is the easiest path. I’m not at all arguing that vocab is all people need; students must solve many practice tests and review what they’ve solved carefully, learning how the test works and the patterns of SAT passages. Like every experienced instructor, I’ve developed my own methods for doing so. But those methods vary depending on students’ needs; vocabulary does not. It’s a constant.
Sorry, typo. This line in my final paragraph should read “2000+ vocab words”:
@marvin100 - are some of your students U.S. based (you mentioned some U.S. high schools) or do they all live overseas? Do they generally live in a country in which English is the first language?
I think I have addressed this many times but do not seem to get my point across. So, I will try one more time.
If it is easier to learn/memorize a list of words than reading hundreds of books, it remains that those lists hardly do anything for the purpose of the test … which is READING COMPREHENSION. It is NOT a vocabulary test and one with a wonderful command of vocabulary can still fail miserably. If the test was about memorizing the entire dictionary, more students would score much higher on the SAT.
As I wrote before, I can understand how a student who scores in the 300-400 range might do better by reading a number of culled words from … the past tests. After all, what ARE those infamous lists if not an arbitrary selection of the past and a purported insight into the future. There are no secrets … those lists are as good as the “selection” was. In the past, I have studied those lists and repeatedly debunked the myth related to “direct hits” and similar. In so many words, the studying of the lists IN A VACUUM do NOT contribute much, and should NOT based on the statistical analysis. On a jocular basis, I have often said that I could suggest 100 words that WILL show up on every test. The bad news is that they are all in the math section.
What is my bottom line? Yes, having a better command of English helps. If one did not get it from years of reading critically, what is the next best option? Well, it is reading the past tests proactively! Do it enough and you will pick up all the darn words someone listed without much concern for context or double senses.
I do respect the opinion of others who have seen progress through the studying of vocab, but I remain steadfast in my opinion that there was a MUCH better way. Just as I remain steadfast that the direct relation with the studying of list of words to a higher score is due to a different set of factors.