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What's the best way to increase my SAT vocab skill? Should I study the Princeton Review book hit parade list or other lists or should I just read some good books, newspapers and magazines. I need to improve quick before the October SAT. Thanx.

By Roger (Roger) on Thursday, September 13, 2001 - 10:12 am: Edit

Long-term, reading good books and lots of 'em is a great way to do it. To meet an October deadline, though, I'd throw in specific vocab study. Barron's and others have word lists and even little flash-card type study aids. Take your word lists everywhere - study them in your spare time, and enlist your parents to quiz you periodically. (Long car trips to visit colleges are a great time for studying and quizzing.) SAT prep software exists, too, but is somewhat less portable. Go for "distributed" learning (multiple smaller study sessions), which has been shown to be more effective. Good luck

By Harley on Tuesday, October 23, 2001 - 01:01 pm: Edit

How much harder is vocabulary on the GRE compared to the SAT? What's the best GRE prep book?

By Dadster on Thursday, November 01, 2001 - 05:22 pm: Edit

This might be too late for Billbo, but in addition to raw vocab skills it would be a good idea to polish up the SAT-V test-taking skills, i.e., understand the organization of the questions and the "tricks" of taking that part of the test. The Barrons, Princeton Review, etc., books have that info.

By Bill Whalen (Bill_W) on Tuesday, May 28, 2002 - 05:21 am: Edit

I wrote a long message on the subject at http://www.collegeconfidential.com/discus/messages/70/307.html

Bill Whalen

By Dave Berry on Sunday, June 09, 2002 - 09:12 am: Edit

Did anyone happen to catch the AP wire story today about ETS adding an essay to the revamped SAT I scheduled to debut in 2005? There weren't a whole lot of details, but I presume that it will be a similar approach to that in the SAT II Writing exam. One person quoted in the article mentioned that the new requirement should make high schools put more emphasis on writing skills. DUH! It's about time.

The article also stated that ETS/College Board offers 22 SAT II subject tests and that 60 colleges require the SAT IIs. I have never seen a cumulative stat on how many schools require the IIs, but I would have guessed fewer than 60.

Bottom line for 9th graders this year: Start learning how to formulate a well-organized written argument. I wonder what the trickle-down effect will be on test-prep courses, because now the instructors will have to make subjective evaluations on their students' practice essays. If they guess wrong on their evaluations, their guaranteed-score programs could end up losing quite a bit of money. Interesting.

By MichiganTestTaker on Sunday, June 09, 2002 - 09:23 am: Edit

I would highly recommend a vocab builder from a web-site called insoluz.com. It has over 1000 words and it has been immensely helpful to me. I downloaded the program free of charge a while ago, but they may now charge a fee, I am not quite sure. I was extremely grateful that I used the program, many of the words that I learned and became familiar with were on the SAT and I zipped throught the verbal section without really having to contemplate the meaning of a word. I would highly recommend this program to anyone who wants to increase their word power.

By Rick Chappell on Monday, October 07, 2002 - 09:00 pm: Edit

Hey! I got a perfect score on my SAT Verbal, and I did extremely minimal studying, like taking practice tests and reading vocab charts. The best way for me is to read books upon books upon books. Learn context clues, and your vocabulary will soar. That's what I did, anyway. Just make sure not to slack off on your math(I got 620).