Verbal Reasoning: Vocabulary Method
The lexical half of the verbal score: roots, prefixes, connotation, secondary senses, and how to make a word available in twenty seconds.
9 topics · 36 questions
Each topic is a path, not a menu: work down it in order and every question builds on the one above. Click any of them to watch the answer draw itself.
What High-Utility Academic Vocabulary Means
- How it worksHow does a word earn a place on a high-utility list through frequency in academic prose rather than rarity?
- Common mistakeWhy doesn't memorizing 3000 flashcards beat learning 800 words in the sentences they actually live in?
- Worked exampleShow me why ameliorate is high-utility and zeugma is not, judged by where each word actually turns up.
- Going furtherWhat changes about a word list when half your errors come from words you thought you already knew?
Your turneasy1 of 3
A student plans to learn a high-utility list of 748 words at 19 new words a day. Find the number of days the list takes.Learning Words by Root Family
- How it worksHow does a word assemble on screen out of a root plus a prefix plus a suffix?
- How it worksHow can a root bound a word's meaning even when it does not hand you that meaning exactly?
- Worked exampleShow me building intractable, tractable and protracted from the root tract and reading each off its parts.
- Going furtherWhat happens when a root has drifted so far from its origin that the etymology actively misleads you?
- Common mistakeWhy isn't a root-based guess a substitute for knowing what a word means today?
Your turneasy1 of 3
A student learns the root loqu and within 22 minutes meets four words containing it: loquacious, eloquent, colloquial and soliloquy. What does the root supply?Prefixes That Flip or Scale a Meaning
- How it worksHow do a-, in-, dis-, mal- and counter- negate a root while super-, hyper- and sub- only scale it?
- Worked exampleShow me reading intransigent off its parts and then checking that reading against a real sentence.
- Going furtherWhat happens with inflammable, where the prefix turns out not to negate anything at all?
- Common mistakeWhy isn't every word beginning in- the opposite of the word sitting inside it?
Your turneasy1 of 3
On a revision card a student sorts eight prefixes into two groups: a-, in-, dis-, mal- and counter- in one, super-, hyper- and sub- in the other, writing 5 example words beside each group. What is the principle behind the split?Suffixes and What They Do to a Word
- How it worksHow do -ous, -ate, -ify, -tion and -ive push a single root through adjective, verb and noun?
- Worked exampleShow me turning obdurate into a noun and a verb and checking which of those forms English really uses.
- Going furtherWhat changes about a blank whose slot demands a noun when three of its choices are adjectives?
Your turneasy1 of 3
A blank in a sentence must be filled by a noun, and 3 of the five answer choices end in -ous or -ive. What does that allow you to do?Connotation and Register as the Tiebreaker
- How it worksHow does connotation break a tie between two near-synonyms once plain meaning has failed to?
- How it worksHow does register, the formality of a word, rule out a choice that is otherwise perfect?
- Worked exampleShow me sorting confident, assured, cocky, arrogant and self-possessed from approving to damning.
- Common mistakeWhy isn't a thesaurus entry enough to decide which of two synonyms a sentence is asking for?
Your turneasy1 of 3
A profile reports approvingly that a household saved 37 percent of its income by refusing every unnecessary purchase. Which word does the sentence want, and why?Words Whose GRE Meaning Is the Secondary One
- How it worksHow do you notice that a familiar word is being used in a sense you would never reach for first?
- Worked exampleShow me the two senses of discriminating and which one a sentence praising a collector needs.
- Common mistakeWhy doesn't your first reading of a common word count as a definition you can safely trust?
- Going furtherWhat happens when both senses of a word fit the gap and only the surrounding sentences settle it?
Your turneasy1 of 3
A passage states that the reform arrested a decline that had run for 29 years. What does arrested mean here?Words That Change Meaning by Part of Speech
- How it worksHow does a word's grammatical slot decide which of its two meanings is the live one?
- Worked exampleShow me brook and temper used first as verbs and then as nouns, with the meaning shifting each time.
- Common mistakeWhy isn't the noun sense of a word a safe guide to what its verb sense means?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
A passage reports that support for the measure flagged after 15 weeks of debate. What does flagged mean in that sentence?The Most Confused Near-Pairs
- How it worksHow do you build a memory hook that keeps two lookalike words from collapsing into each other?
- Worked exampleShow me the difference between ingenuous and ingenious in two sentences that swap the two words.
- Worked exampleShow me disinterested and uninterested dropped into a courtroom sentence where only one of them works.
- Common mistakeWhy isn't fulsome a compliment when it sounds so much like generous praise?
- Going furtherWhat happens to a near-pair when one member is used ironically in a scholarly passage?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
A report says 9 hours of meetings enervated the committee. What state does that leave the committee in?Learning a Word So It Comes Back in 20 Seconds
- How it worksHow does spaced retrieval move a word from merely recognized to available under time pressure?
- How it worksHow does learning a word inside one vivid sentence beat learning it as a definition on a card?
- Worked exampleShow me turning obstreperous into a single image and a sentence you could call back in five seconds.
- Going furtherWhat happens to recall when you learn a word paired with its opposite instead of on its own?
Your turneasy1 of 3
A spaced-retrieval schedule shows each of 157 new words 7 times before the test. Find the total number of retrievals the schedule asks for.AP®, SAT® and PSAT/NMSQT® are trademarks registered by the College Board (PSAT/NMSQT® jointly with the National Merit Scholarship Corporation). ACT® is a registered trademark of ACT Education Corp. GRE® is a registered trademark of ETS. LSAT® is a registered trademark of the Law School Admission Council. MCAT® is a registered trademark of the Association of American Medical Colleges. ISEE® and SSAT® are registered trademarks of their owners. None of these organizations is affiliated with, or endorses, Jentoo.