Vocab Building Books

[e-lusion]

Hello!

Firstly, I must say that I'm new to TestMagic but have been lurking around the forums for the past few months. I've finally started my GRE test prep and hence finally registered.

I've done vocab for SAT but didn't get a great score. Started the words again and I absolutely detest them. Have a good vocab in general but need to learn the unknown ones.

Would you suggest any books for vocab building? I've heard that Word Power made easy by Norman Lewis is good but then heard that its too basic. Then some book by Nurenburg is good.

Which in your opinion and experience is a good and worthwhile book? Or what has been a successful and not boring approach to vocab building?

Thanks a lot!

Amrita

[FurryFloyd]

I have a book called Word Smart that I like. In addition to word lists it has really good tips for learning and remembering new words.

[zorrillo]

'Word Power Made Easy' by Norman Lewis is a great book. I studied it thoroughly myself, and found it quite useful. However, unless you're aiming to build a superior functional vocabulary, much of it is not relevant to the GRE. 'How To Build a Better Vocabulary' by Maxwell Nurnberg and Morris Rosenblum is the finest and most interesting vocabulary book you'll ever lay your hands on. Again, not relevant to the GRE.

The best place to start learning words for the test is the Barron's Guide. Do it over and over again till you know all of the 50-odd wordlists by heart. Having done that, the best way to practice these words is by solving GRE sentence completions, analogies, etc. from various sources. People often overlook the importance of learning words by 'encountering' them in actual questions; if you rely solely on wordlists, you run the risk of scoring poorly on the Verbal test inspite of having a good vocabulary. This shouldn't happen.

Go to supervoca.com and download their antonyms program. It's the most amazing software for GRE prep on the net today.

Good Luck

[Mygter]

Originally Posted by zorrillo

'Word Power Made Easy' by Norman Lewis is a great book. I studied it thoroughly myself, and found it quite useful. However, unless you're aiming to build a superior functional vocabulary, much of it is not relevant to the GRE. 'How To Build a Better Vocabulary' by Maxwell Nurnberg and Morris Rosenblum is the finest and most interesting vocabulary book you'll ever lay your hands on. Again, not relevant to the GRE.

The best place to start learning words for the test is the Barron's Guide. Do it over and over again till you know all of the 50-odd wordlists by heart. Having done that, the best way to practice these words is by solving GRE sentence completions, analogies, etc. from various sources. People often overlook the importance of learning words by 'encountering' them in actual questions; if you rely solely on wordlists, you run the risk of scoring poorly on the Verbal test inspite of having a good vocabulary. This shouldn't happen.

Go to supervoca.com and download their antonyms program. It's the most amazing software for GRE prep on the net today.

Good Luck

thank you so much, the website you recommand is really something£¡

[raj]

I think Barrons, gurus world list ,kaplan's word power and princenton hit listshould be o.k
best luck

[aw2129]

Hey E-lusion,

These are the ones I used to prepare for GRE:
- Vocabulary Cartoons I (SAT word power)
- Vocabulary Cartoons II (SAT word power)
- Illustrated Word Smart (From Princeton Review)
- More Illustrated Word Smart (From Princeton Review)
- Word Smart I (From Princeton Review)
- Word Smart II (From Princeton Review)
- Word Smart for the GRE (From Princeton Review)
- GRE Vocabulary Builder (From REA)
- Barron's GRE book

There is more details on each book in my other post under "just finished my GRE thread"
Hope that helps.

[Martha]

Dear Raj :

I do not know if you could sent me some of this wordlist , except Barron's, I need urgently to improve my verbal score a.s.a.p.:mgcavero03@hotmail.com

Thank you very much .

[adonis]

There's one more by Rosenbaum. I forget the title. neone knows?

[kfree]

Originally Posted by aw2129

Hey E-lusion,

These are the ones I used to prepare for GRE:
- Vocabulary Cartoons I (SAT word power)
- Vocabulary Cartoons II (SAT word power)
- Illustrated Word Smart (From Princeton Review)
- More Illustrated Word Smart (From Princeton Review)
- Word Smart I (From Princeton Review)
- Word Smart II (From Princeton Review)
- Word Smart for the GRE (From Princeton Review)
- GRE Vocabulary Builder (From REA)
- Barron's GRE book

There is more details on each book in my other post under "just finished my GRE thread"
Hope that helps.

Great List!

Let me add some of my favorites:
- The Wizard of OZ Vocabulary Builder by Mark Philips
- Words for Smart Test Takers by (check....)

[sakram]

someone , somewhere at amazon once said that barons wordlist are a bit of overkill as the top 500 words account for 90% of the words on real gre..anyone agrees ?