What’s the best book/website to learn root words to help build vocab for GRE?
July 20th, 2009 | 
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Hi and welcome to my blog,
I opened this blog to help anyone who is preparing for his GRE exam.
I remember myself when I started - I was so lost and in such a panic.
Luckily I got this great Gre guide that helped me a lot
So study hard and good luck!
I really didn’t know it, but I have found, after starting to study for the GRE, that my vocab SUCKS.
I’ve got one of Barron’s GRE books, and I’m signed up for 3 of vocab builder websites on the net.
I think learning root words will help me more than anything… as opposed to memorizing the dictionary!
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Take a look at:
Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know
by E. D. Hirsch, Jr.
It’s not designed for vocab improvement. But I find things that ARE designed for that purpose to be so boring that I don’t get anything out of them. I get most of my vocabulary by reading and listening to things that are interesting to me.
I used to use Hirsch’s book in conversational English classes for advanced non-native English speakers. A lot of the hard part of "language" comes from not knowing all the assumed "world knowledge" of the other party. These students (librarians actually) read a lot of english. Most of what they missed was not in grammar or vocabulary but in "implict information" that the author could assume all his/her readers would certainly know.
But cultures change over time and making such asumptions crossing cultures is not wise. One of the most useful things we could do while "praticing" conversation was try to fill these cultural literacy gaps. It was fun too!
All this is extremely indirect in terms of trying to build vocabulary. But I think that adding something to help you "think laterally" while you are looking at word roots, vocab drills, and influences of Latin, French, and West Germanic on the development of modern English might actually be helpful.
It also doesn’t hurt to remeber that the folks who write the GRE questions KNOW all this essencial "Cultural Literacy". And, tho they don’t test for that knowledge explicitly, they do expect you to know it too.
-me
Whoa, The free rice thing is fun too! My wife will love it.
Merriam-Webster has a word of the day page that’s great for helping you study for the GRE. They use the word in a sentence, define it and give you the etymology. Check it daily, and don’t forget to peruse the archives! http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/mwwod.pl
Also, check out Free Rice. It’s a charity organization that donates rice to the poor, and they do it in a cool way. They show you a word and you have to answer with its definition from a list of 4. For each word you get right, they donate 20 grains of rice. And the words get harder as you go along. http://www.freerice.com
You can try this GRE Simulator
http://groups.google.com/group/gre-simulator/web/gre-simulator-intro
It includes all the past GRE exam questions