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A young chum of mine is preparing to take the Graduate Record Examination in order to get herself into graduate school. She wrote to complain that she is having to learn long lists of vocabulary which she somehow missed in many years of undergraduate education. She gave me some examples: alacrity - eager and enthusiastic willingness disabuse - to undeceive; to set right ennui - dissatisfaction and restlessness resulting from boredom or apathy obviate - to anticipate and make unnecessary paean - a song or hymn of praise and thanksgiving ( orginially to Apollo) perspicacious - acutely perceptive (I think it's easier to say the definition than the word) chary - wary; cautious, sparing impecunious - lacking funds; without money (I think this is a term only used by those w/ $$) inveigle - to obtain by deception or flattery evanescent - tending to disappear like vapor; vanishing grandiloquence - pompous speech or expression (I think the word itself is pompous) mendacity - the condition of being untruthful; dishonesty (You see mendacious folks in court!) obdurate - unyielding; hardhearted; intractable opprobrium - disgrace; contempt; scorn salubrious - promoting health or well-being (to remember this one, I created a visual image of someone slathered in goop at a health spa) specious - seeming true, but actually being fallacious; plausible but false When I wrote back and asked where she got the list, she told me that there are several such lists available on-line. Here is one of them: The List Being a pastoral sort, I did not write back and say that, had she only been a recipient of AWAD and a member of this board, she would have less studying to do.
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What the HELL kind of an education do she get that she didn't learn these? I knew all these in high school fer Chrissake!
TEd
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I'm with TEd though I wouldn't have stated it quite so bluntly. I'm pretty sure I knew all these words before starting (undergrad) college. I went to a public high school, in Atlanta -- i.e. nothing faincy. Condolences to your young friend, Fr Steve. Poor girl.
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I didn't learn these in HS... maybe a few of them, but certainly not the whole list. they're all good words, but most are way over the top for normal usage, imnsho.
formerly known as etaoin...
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Depends if we're talking about FS' sample or the entire list he directed us to. Sure, I expect many of us knew lots of these, since we're a way above-average sample of literacy. But personally I did not know this one at *all in high-school years: detumescence--diminishing or lessening of swelling Good luck to her in at least continuing to build her vocab as she needs it.
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I knew all these in HS, but I did poorly on the SAT, scoring a scant 580 on the verbal portion. However, much later, I considered going on for my doctorate and thought it would be good to take a practice GRE. At that time, I got a 790 on the verbal. I'm not sure if I was aware of AWAD at the time. I think studying vocabulary for it's own sake is a worthwhile thing or else I wouldn't be here - but I suspect most people will the same problem I have which is that I don't remember words unless I use them or I see them used over and over.
The big difference between me at 18 and me at 30-something was not studying lists of words (which I'm not knocking, btw), but the fact that I'd expanded my reading. I used to only read comic books, science books, and sf. It turns out that a crap load of those GRE words are words that you see time and again in classic and modern literature.
I think I might have done even worse on my SAT had I not had two years of Latin and a pretty good HS etymology course behind me.
Anyway, I think the very best way to prepare for the GRE is to take a sample (real)test first. Other than that, the best way to practice for the verbal portion is to have a program reading widely - well before you take the actual test.
If, otoh, someone is reduced to memorizing lists of words, a few hints:
1. Have practical goals. Don't say "I'm going to do 100 new words a day" or even 20 because you wont keep to that schedule.
2. Take practice tests - one a week, if you can manage it. There are books that contain actual tests from which, if you are scrupulous, you can derive a very good sense of what the real test will entail.
3. Find authoritative lists of these words and try to prioritize the list.
4. Use the words that you are learning. Understand them and make a habit of using them in your conversations. It will seem pretentious to the people around you, but you have to get into that habit, if you want to expand your vocabulary.
5. Don't just memorize a word and never look at it again. Each time you practice, make it a cumulative practice.
6. Make flash cards. (Using the available wordlists, it would be an extremely trivial program to write a text based program that would take a dictionary and then test you - assuming the dictionary were in a format that was readily consumable.)
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FF sez: "It turns out that a crap load of those GRE words are words that you see time and again in classic and modern literature." Is a "crap load" a volumetric measurement or one determined by weight? About measures
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> Whether sifted or not, a pound of flour is always a pound of flour.
yeahbut it cooks differently if sifted and fluffed with air, at least in some cases...
[/cookery interjection] WNRYTYRP
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Yeahbut, a pound of flour spread evenly through the air in a room can be darned near as dangerous as a pound of gasoline.
TEd
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Pooh-Bah
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Quote:
Yeahbut, a pound of flour spread evenly through the air in a room can be darned near as dangerous as a pound of gasoline.
For a while, I lurked on a poetics list, and only came forward once, when this was mentioned. At issue was a art installation in which sacks of flour moved through several rooms on conveyor belts. The installation was closed down by the local fire chief, and the poeticists couldn't fathom why. Organic powders are explove when become airborne at certain concentrations. A Queens, NY bubble gum factor once exploded, killing many workers, when the powdered gum base ignited.
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So they musta been blank versifiers, since they apparently saw neither rhyme nor reason.
And that, dear Faldo, is a great pun.
TEd
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stranger
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stranger
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I knew all these in HS, but I did poorly on the SAT, scoring a scant 580 on the verbal portion. However, much later, I considered going on for my doctorate and thought it would be good to take a practice GRE. At that time, I got a 790 on the verbal. I'm not sure if I was aware of AWAD at the time. I think studying vocabulary for it's own sake is a worthwhile thing or else I wouldn't be here - but I suspect most people will the same problem I have which is that I don't remember words unless I use them or I see them used over and over.
The big difference between me at 18 and me at 30-something was not studying lists of words (which I'm not knocking, btw), but the fact that I'd expanded my reading. I used to only read comic books, science books, and sf. It turns out that a crap load of those GRE words are words that you see time and again in classic and modern literature.
I think I might have done even worse on my SAT had I not had two years of Latin and a pretty good HS etymology course behind me.
Anyway, I think the very best way to prepare for the GRE is to take a sample (real)test first. Other than that, the best way to practice for the verbal portion is to have a program reading widely - well before you take the actual test.
If, otoh, someone is reduced to memorizing lists of words, a few hints:
1. Have practical goals. Don't say "I'm going to do 100 new words a day" or even 20 because you wont keep to that schedule.
2. Take practice tests - one a week, if you can manage it. There are books that contain actual tests from which, if you are scrupulous, you can derive a very good sense of what the real test will entail.
3. Find authoritative lists of these words and try to prioritize the list.
4. Use the words that you are learning. Understand them and make a habit of using them in your conversations. It will seem pretentious to the people around you, but you have to get into that habit, if you want to expand your vocabulary.
5. Don't just memorize a word and never look at it again. Each time you practice, make it a cumulative practice.
6. Make flash cards. (Using the available wordlists, it would be an extremely trivial program to write a text based program that would take a dictionary and then test you - assuming the dictionary were in a format that was readily consumable.) You have mentioned very good tips! Here's a website http://www.grevocabulary.org which also has very useful tips and info to get a good verbal score in GRE
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old hand
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old hand
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> Whether sifted or not, a pound of flour is always a pound of flour.
yeahbut it cooks differently if sifted and fluffed with air, at least in some cases... True that, but in cooking, flour is not measured by weight (normally), but by volume. A cup of unsifted flour does not equal a cup of sifted flour. The cup of sifted flour will weigh less. I'm not sure any of the "air" actually survives the mixing process , but starting off with the molecules farther apart makes for less mixing time, which can be crucial for some recipes. Not all mixtures should be beaten to death, or even to a draw... :0) I think I might have done even worse on my SAT had I not had two years of Latin and a pretty good HS etymology course behind me. You're darn tootin'! Studies have shown that second language study increases SAT/GRE scores by up to 50 points or so, with Latin leading the charge. No big surprise, to me.
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Actually, in US flour is measured by volume (cups)
but in UK and many parts of europe, flour and other ingredients are measured by weight... (250 gm of flour is the weight of the flour, not the volume) and its a much more accurate way to cook.
Kitchen scales are common in most of europe (and in my kitchen) Ikea has not 1 but a selection!
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old hand
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old hand
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Actually, in US flour is measured by volume (cups) I sit corrected... sorry, but I've been sick for a week or so, and not at the top of my game... :0) Where weight may be more accurate in theory, it is dependent upon the accuracy of the scale, so in practice the two methods are probably roughly equivalent, although somehow the US seems to have more calories, based on visual observation of the consumers ;0)
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veteran
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I do a little cooking (most of the cooking in our house). As with most things, I've just figured out what what I can make work without learning the right way. Usually when I measure flour, I pour it out of the bag and tamp it down into the measuring cup. When the recipe calls for sifted, I then pour the measured flour into the sifter. It never occurred to me to do otherwise.
Probably the answer is obvious, but I don't know. If a recipe calls for a cup of sifted flour, should I measure before or after sifting? Does it matter?
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old hand
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old hand
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It means "sifted flour", that is, flour that has been sifted. So measure after you sift. I wouldn't worry about for most recipes, but I would stop tamping it down, though. If you have a fussy recipe, you'll end up with too much flour, and for most recipes it's not good to have packed down flour. The only thing that requires tamping is brown sugar because it's so affluous (made that up...) you want to eliminate air pockets. If you want to approximate the sifted flour needed, just start with slightly less than the required amount, and see if that works. I don't sift always when it calls for it, and nobody dies! :0)
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I don't think our vocabulary has much to do with what we were or were not taught at school, but with personal reading habits. If you look up the meaning of every word you don't know when you come across it you will increase your vocabulary.
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old hand
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The online version of the New York Times has a great feature that allows you to double click any word as you are reading and get a dictionary definition. Very handy.
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Gee, do you ever reach the end of an article that way? I wouldn't
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