Top GRE Vocabulary Learning Techniques that Actually Work

GRE is divided into three sections: Analytical Writing Assessment, Verbal Reasoning, and Quantitative Reasoning, and a student’s performance in these sections makes up their scorecard.

For most Indian students, appearing for the GRE, Quantitative Reasoning becomes an essential scoring section due to their heavily science-backed academic background. However, since the total score is equally divided between the Verbal and Quant sections, it is unavoidable that students do well in the Verbal section as well to achieve their desired scores.

The biggest challenge students face when preparing for the GRE Verbal section is the built-in vocabulary, which can come off as being advanced and elaborate on the surface. Although Vocabulary is not directly tested, it is an essential part of the GRE Verbal section. Thus, more often than not, a limited vocabulary bank can become an impediment to a student’s overall performance.

Throughout the GRE preparation process, students should actively work to enhance their vocabulary so they can tackle the Verbal section without a hitch. GRE vocabulary learning can be taxing if approached without a proper plan and resources in place.

This article will guide students through effective GRE vocabulary learning techniques to make their preparation process smoother.

GRE Vocabulary Learning Techniques Overview

Mentioned below are a few techniques when it comes to GRE vocabulary learning:

• Learning in groups

• Repeated learning

• Contextual Understanding

• Additional Exercises

Learning in Groups

Students mustn’t overwhelm themselves with the sheer amount of words that come with GRE Vocabulary learning. To be at the top of your GRE vocabulary progress, it is always important to learn your words in groups and clusters. The clusters based on themes, synonyms, and similar contextual meanings help students remember better through connection and correlation. It helps students memorise several words at once, in a bunch. Learning in groups not only boosts the speed of memorisation but also comes in handy, especially with the Sentence Equivalence question type, which makes up 30% of the GRE Verbal section.

In Jamboree, Learning in Groups is the most trusted process of GRE Vocabulary learning. As many as 13 full-fledged wordlists with several word clusters have been designed to precipitate the learning process for our students.

An example of a word cluster from the Jamboree Portal Vocabulary learning section:

Repeated Learning

Memorisation requires more than just applying and revising once in a while. When tackling the mammoth vocabulary of the GRE, students must take time each day to learn and re-learn the word lists. It is an essential practice that students carve out about 30 to 45 minutes daily for Vocabulary revision before getting started on the GRE Verbal problem-solving. The regularity helps retain new words effectively. Students have consistently reported positive results when practising repeated learning strategies.

Getting started with one wordlist per day in the beginning, and then building up vocabulary with consistent repetition, problem-solving, and revision, has been shown to equip GRE aspirants with essential vocabulary without last-minute pressure and anxiety.

At Jamboree, it is a conscious practice that faculty members take up a word list per class and help students get started on the learning process. To further sustain interest and assist consistent learning, Jamboree has digital flashcards available on both the LMS portal and the official vocab learning application.

An example of a flashcard from the Jamboree Portal Vocabulary learning section:

Contextual Understanding

Stressing the importance of Vocabulary on the GRE only goes so far as to make one realise that it is not the word meaning itself, but the meaning of said word in a given context that is of relevance. Therefore, rather than studying words and their meanings, it is essential that students practice using a particular word in a specific context. Learning words within sentences boosts students’ performance in question types like Text completion and Sentence equivalence, especially. If this is the case, it is clear that approaching GRE Vocabulary through a contextual understanding standpoint benefits students best in their preparation since these question types make up about 60% of the Verbal Reasoning section of the test.

Jamboree has Vocabulary practice workbooks that come with additional practice quizzes to help students test their understanding of the word list that they tackle daily. These are designed to boost student understanding and application of words that they might have difficulty learning and remembering. The quizzes are also available on the LMS portal and the Vocabulary learning application for ease of access.

An example of a quiz from the Jamboree Portal Vocabulary learning section:

Additional Exercises

Although the above-mentioned steps are enough to build and sustain a good GRE Vocabulary for the verbal section, there are always additional practices that can come in handy in the long run. Other things that can be fruitful when practising GRE Vocabulary are keeping a vocabulary journal, especially when solving official GRE verbal questions. Students should make looking up word meanings for new words and noting them down a regular practice. So, coming back to the word and re-learning it becomes an easier practice.

Attending revision webinars can be an effective way for students to recall and revise their vocabulary together in a group. Jamboree holds weekly vocabulary webinars to facilitate group learning and interactions. These are designed to help students in comparative studies and boost the spirit of competence among peers.

Additionally, students could look up root words, if interested, making the learning process easy and fun overall. Other than that, using mnemonic devices like anecdotes and mental stories for correlation and association might also help boost overall retention.

Conclusion

GRE Vocabulary can be a difficult wall to climb, but it is an essential one since vocabulary plays a very important role in the GRE Verbal section. It might be intimidating to begin with, but it is not impossible. If the whole chunk of the Vocabulary is divided into tiny bite-sized pieces and one of each is worked upon daily, then the task becomes increasingly accessible, approachable, and ultimately easy.

When all is said and done, it is essential to practice your vocabulary constantly and consistently if the end goal is learning and application.

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