Studying Vocabulary Will Increase your Verbal Score

Introduction

Boston Tutoring Services has developed proprietary materials for tutors to use in ISEE and SSAT test preparation. In our training manual, we include a comprehensive vocabulary chapter.

Learning and studying vocabulary will increase your verbal score. It can be difficult to fit studying of vocabulary into your busy schedule, but without making it a priority, you will not be able to perform well on the synonyms and analogies portions of the SSAT exam or the synonyms and sentence completions portions of the ISEE exam.

What is most important to remember about studying vocabulary is that you will never be asked to directly define a word, so rote memorization of exact word definitions is not the recommended strategy. Instead, the exam will ask you to identify how a given word relates to a set of other words. Therefore, when you can recognize words in context and have a sense of what they mean, even if you cannot provide an exact definition, you will probably be able to answer the question correctly. This means that you should know a word well enough (75% of the way) to compare it to other words in a given list and generally understand its meaning in a context.

75% Method for Vocabulary

To know a word 0% of the way means you have never heard of it before, and could not eliminate any answer choices given to you in relation to the word. To know a word 50% of the way means you have heard it before, but are not quite sure what it means;  you may be able to eliminate some answer choices, but your answer would still be a less-than-educated guess. When you know a word 100% of the way it means you know the exact definition of the word; you know it cold. Knowing a word 75% of the way is all you need to do well on this test. The more words you know 75% of the way, the better, because this test is all about word relationships. Knowing two words 75% of the way so that you can identify the appropriate relationship is better than only knowing one of the words 100% of the way.

Learning Vocabulary Through Word-Parts (Including Prefixes and Roots)

It is important to start to reason out how words are built. One of the main ways to do this is through studying prefixes and roots, and a comprehensive list is included in our materials. It is important to be able to break words that you do not recognize into pieces and decipher the meanings, because it’s better to be able to understand how words are made up than to just memorize them by rote. You can perform so much better on this test by having this skill of deciphering words than just by memorizing words on their own.

Using Online Quizzes to Study Vocabulary

Also, some students enjoy working with an online vocabulary program, such as quizlet.com, which allows you to create word lists and quizzes, and share them with other students. Please use other websites to help you to continue to expand your vocabulary. There are many sites out there where you can plug in a word and get more synonyms and antonyms to study, such as thesaurus.com.

Chapter Summary

It is so important to study your prefixes, roots, and vocabulary words, because your verbal score depends on it. It is very challenging to perform well on the synonyms, analogies, sentence completions without a strong ability to analyze words and their meanings. You need to make sure you are working on this as many days per week as possible, up to half an hour a day if you can. Bring the vocab words with you in the car, to school, while you are waiting for sports games to start. It has to become part of your day, otherwise you’ll never find time to do it.