Silence is not golden!

How true!! I had to rewrite this proverb in order to meet the requirement of GRE students.

“Words, Words and Words”, this is all about GRE Verbal. The more words you know the brighter the chances of securing an awesome score in the Verbal Ability segment. The brighter are the chances for securing a seat in that coveted University you always aspired to be in.

As most of us know the GRE Verbal Ability part has four main sections- Antonyms, Sentence Completion, Analogies and Reading Comprehension I would like to start a sequence of explanation for all the major components of the GRE. To begin with, I will first deal with Vocabulary as one major controlling factor to crack the first three question types in the aforementioned sentence.

The Wikipedia defines Vocabulary as a person’s set of words he/she is familiar with in a language. A vocabulary usually grows and evolves with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. I guess we all now understand how justified is the ETS to include this very pertinent field in order to sift the rightful candidates for the American Universities.

Adding to your vocabulary is certainly not a Herculean task. It is much easier than you realize. Setting realistic goals for snow balling your vocabulary list is very important. An average person would have, not more than 1000-1500 words stored in his/her memory. When I say 1500 it’s a bit on the higher side!! At the same time one cannot become a Winston Churchill with an awesome 10,000 words at one’s command! To score a perfect 800 in GRE Verbal you need to have a decent understanding of say 3500 words (which are usually termed – High Frequency GRE Words). They are called ‘High Frequency’ because once you land in the US of A; you will get to hear these words the most on the College Campus. Once you equip yourself with these magical words, you would be able to locate yourself more appropriately. There would be no embarrassing occasion (misunderstanding, misconstruing) whatsoever.

I would now like to speak on some ‘realistic goals’ that you may like to set for yourself. But before dealing with the ‘realistic’ goals I would like to comment on the ‘unrealistic’ ones.

Some unrealistic goals students set for themselves:

1. Learning 20-30 new words a day!
2. ‘Remembering words’ and ‘learning by heart’ techniques
3. Memorizing words in sequence, i.e. (let me first complete list A and then I will go to list B…that’s a big pain in the neck isn’t it?…phew!!)
4. Learning the words mechanically without imbibing it’s flavor
5. Not caring even a bit for the word history and considering test taking a sheer mechanical process

What are the realistic goals?

1. Start adding to your ‘Vocabulary’ list well in advance
2. Do not try to imbibe the meaning of more than 3-5 words a day
3. Learn the ‘synonyms’ of the words that you shortlist for a day
4. Start reading good magazines, journals and newspapers
5. Develop vision, ear and heart for good words
6. Adding to vocabulary is fun! Do not make it a stress generating act for yourself!

The more words you know, the more articulate speaker you can be. Such a credential boosts and enhances your confidence, building your profile cut above the rest!

Therefore, for all you aspirants!

Silence is definitely not golden in today’s competitive world. Hope all you guys now would surely agree with me.

Stay tuned to my Blog to catch up with a Series on GRE Verbal Prep Strategies and more comments on Vocabulary Development/ Improvement Strategy.

Kindly post queries on the topic if any.

Anu Veluri

Manager- Learnwordlist.com

3 Responses to “Silence is not golden!”

1. Sharad on April 27th, 2009 5:58 am

   i agree! that is true! n the realistic goals which u mentioned are also helpful! thanks again!

2. Sylvanus on June 10th, 2009 4:45 pm

   I appreciate the good works you are doing. It is said that he that waters shall de watered himself – biblical.
   I am more atune to the British spellings so what is the fasted way out?
   Cheers

3. AnuVeluri on June 12th, 2009 3:28 pm

   Thanks so much Sylvanus..pls do read all our blogs. We have mentioned some good techniques for remembering words there.

   Regards,

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