Is the Barron's GRE Vocabulary List Effective for Test Preparation?

[EV33]

I am taking the GRE General in a couple months and my vocabulary is horrible. There are a lot of lists out there but most of the sites that have these lists have no where for people to comment on the lists. So I am not sure what lists are good.

I was curious if the list from the following site looks like it would be helpful.

http://quizlet.com/47571/barrons-gre-wordlist-4759-words-flash-cards/

Thank you.

 

[ank_gl]

I suppose you will be taking the new format. If so, that doesn't require as much mugging of the word list as it used to be. Antonyms & analogies are not there, so you don't really need to know the word exactly. You can easily pick up the meaning of the word from the sentence. Still you must go through all the words once. The one you provided seems nice.

Personally, I am using mobile word list, it is much portable & quick ;P. Here's the one i am using http://www.getjar.com/mobile/28483/gre-guru/

 

[Nano-Passion]

Wait a second.. they test your vocabulary for a physics major? Or is this something else?

 

[ank_gl]

Wait a second.. they test your vocabulary for a physics major? Or is this something else?

I think for physics major you might also need to write subjective gre, but that is at the discretion of the school you apply to if they want it or not. I am not sure though!

 

[Geezer]

Wait a second.. they test your vocabulary for a physics major? Or is this something else?

Most grad schools in the US require two GREs: the Subject GRE (e.g., the Physics GRE) and the General GRE. The General GRE does test vocabulary, among other things. However, it's not an especially important test--no one got into his/her physics grad program because of his/her General GRE score. The Physics GRE is much, much more important.

 

[jwxie]

Most grad schools in the US require two GREs: the Subject GRE (e.g., the Physics GRE) and the General GRE. The General GRE does test vocabulary, among other things. However, it's not an especially important test--no one got into his/her physics grad program because of his/her General GRE score. The Physics GRE is much, much more important.

I see. But from what I understand if you can't do well on your general even with excellent scores on your subject your chance will be a lot lower...

 

[RandomGuy88]

I took the general GRE 2 years ago and a vocab list was completely useless. I memorized over 200 GRE words and none of them were on the stupid test. I did fine on the Verbal part anyways though. The vocab is only a portion of the test. Plus I don't think it matters that much. I am at a very good engineering school and my professor told me they don't even look at the Verbal GRE score because it is useless.

 

[EV33]

Thank you for the help.

 

[Nano-Passion]

Wow.. that is intimidating to hear, I'm not the best at vocabulary. =/

 

[FourierFaux]

https://www.msu.edu/~defores1/gre/vocab/gre_vocab.htm

Pick up several vocabulary lists...

Integrate the vocabulary into your daily language. (This may irritate your family and friends, but it'll be for a good cause)

Any time you think about saying something, try to look up synonyms for what you are trying to say. The fancier the better. Treat it like learning a foreign language. (The true preparation for this should have begun years ago, a year or two of Latin or Italien would have done wonders) Reading lots of different books from different time periods like the Victorian era would help. Reading scholarly articles about Linguistics and English Analyses would probably help too. Any time you run across a word that you don't understand, reference it, look it up. Unfortunately, there are roughly 1,033,322 words in the English Language*, so studying for the Vocabulary section of the GRE is a lot like trying to drink from a fire hydrant... it may help quench your thirst, but it's more likely you'll drown trying.

Interesting note:

German Langauge ~~ 400,000 words
http://findinfoworld.com/blog/2010/08/07/how-many-words-are-there-in-the-language-and-how-many-of-them-must-be-learnt/

*http://www.numberof.net/number-of-words-in-the-english-language/

 

[FourierFaux]

English Analyses on different books or genre's is what I meant. :)

 

[Vanadium 50]

Wow.. that is intimidating to hear, I'm not the best at vocabulary. =/

And you have how many years before you start grad school? If you can't learn a few words between now and then, how do you expect to get a PhD?

 

[Ryker]

And you have how many years before you start grad school? If you can't learn a few words between now and then, how do you expect to get a PhD?

Reading comments like his (no offense, Nano-Passion) also makes me think sometimes whether it's truly the degree that's at fault for people not getting jobs with a B.Sc. Physics. It's not just this particular case, a lot of times I see people here so out of tune with reality and pigeonholing their interests in only maths and physics that it's no wonder it's hard to come across as a complete, interesting and all-around capable person employers are looking for.

 

[Nano-Passion]

Reading comments like his (no offense, Nano-Passion) also makes me think sometimes whether it's truly the degree that's at fault for people not getting jobs with a B.Sc. Physics. It's not just this particular case, a lot of times I see people here so out of tune with reality and pigeonholing their interests in only maths and physics that it's no wonder it's hard to come across as a complete, interesting and all-around capable person employers are looking for.

No offense taken. Its funny because I'm quite literally the opposite of that. My interests are so diverse it literally rips my conscious mind apart every day. I have a passion in learning in general. Some of my interests among physics and mathematics are: Biology, chemistry, philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, business, social sciences, and the list goes on and on. I'm an incredibly open minded person. My pet peeve though is rote memorization. I love to learn material in the sense of understanding it and not simple memorization. It is quite intimidating to say the least with 1,000,000 vocabulary words out there.

Furthermore, I love socializing among peers and loved ones.. Far from out of tune with reality. My comment was written in part by intimidation of the vocabulary portion of GRE.

Again, I take no offense. I agree with you about people pigeonholing their interests. I see it everyday, whether its physics and mathematics, law, business, biology, psychology, etc. I believe people don't see the real beauty in life until they rid themselves of their prejudice and biased point of interest. Life is too beautiful to simply be in narrow-minded interest.

And you have how many years before you start grad school? If you can't learn a few words between now and then, how do you expect to get a PhD?

I can. I'll start with about 5 words everyday. Or maybe I should amp it up?

If I do 5 words a day for the year then it would roughly be about 1825 words (not counting leap years). Doing 10 words a day woul be 3950 for the year... hmm sounds good though I only fear tha I would forget the words a year later.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Doing 10 words a day woul be 3950 for the year.

Oh boy.

 

[flyingpig]

Doing 10 words a day woul be 3650 for the year...

I think you need to subtract those that you will actually remember and know how to use.

 

[Nano-Passion]

Oh boy.

Haha, I was tired cut me a break. =/ I'm surprised lol.

I think you need to subtract those that you will actually remember and know how to use.

Exactly.. that's one of the things I stated in my post. I'm not too sure on what to do. Someone else recomended to simply look up every word I don't understand, which is what I've been doing for years and it probably won't work too good because I know almost all the words I've come across. But on the other hand, I know there are many more lesser known words out there that I'm probably not aware of.

 

[Sankaku]

Instead of making it a chore, go play FreeRice:
http://www.freerice.com/

See if you can get above level 50. I'm not sure how it compares to the GRE, though.

Italien

Along with Germun, Rushin and Duch? (Sorry, couldn't resist!)

 

[Desafino]

Is the GRE much harder than the SAT?

 

[Bourbaki1123]

Instead of making it a chore, go play FreeRice:
http://www.freerice.com/

See if you can get above level 50. I'm not sure how it compares to the GRE, though.Along with Germun, Rushin and Duch? (Sorry, couldn't resist!)

I got to level 38 before it started giving me trouble. I scored 660 on the verbal section without studying any vocabulary, though I do write a fair amount.

ETA: I'm putting this up as a data point to be used in forming a benchmark.

 

[drkatzin]

Just took my GRE general today! I really liked the dictionary.com online gre flashcards

 

[Geezer]

Is the GRE much harder than the SAT?

I didn't think so. I got an 800 on the Verbal section, and I'm not even a verbal person.

 

[Geezer]

Just took my GRE general today! I really liked the dictionary.com online gre flashcards

I dig Dictionary.com, too. It's one of my links on my Firefox Toolbar.

 

[snipez90]

Yo the general GRE is changing sometime this year.

I barely remember taking it last year, but there was an experimental verbal section.

It was all about vocabulary IN CONTEXT and seemed easier I guess.

But you know, I didn't really care since first it was experimental and second ...

it was a standardized friggin exam

 

[Nano-Passion]

And you have how many years before you start grad school? If you can't learn a few words between now and then, how do you expect to get a PhD?

Just entering the second year of college by the way. Still young, I'm focusing on math and physics but I need to also avoid neglecting my vocabulary skills and maybe clean up my writing skills as well.