Another very common question for Indian students and also another very subjective question. Each and every one of us has a different way of learning new things and so there can’t be any one way for all of us to prepare. I think the best thing I can do here is to outline the way that I prepared for this section and hopefully a lot of you will get some good pointers and direction.
(a) It’s all about the roots: Blindly stuffing the meaning of words into your brain by going through some list is the worst way to prepare for this section. You will have to remember an unmanageably large chunk of information. As engineers, you should realize that if you can remember words together as groups, the storage efficiency will be much higher. The easiest way to remember groups of words is to via their etymology, or the way that the word originated. If you remember the roots, you will be able to infer the meaning of even a completely new word that you encounter for the first time. Let’s look at an example. Consider the word euthanasia. If you learn the roots of this word, you will learn that:
• eu- is a Greek root, meaning “good”
• -thanasia is derived from the Greek “Thanatos” who was the god of death.
Therefore, the complete word means “good death”, which is what we know. Now, say you come across the word thanatophobic. Chances are that you have not seen this word before. No need to panic! Roots will always help you out:
• We know that thanato- refers to “death”.
• Everyone knows (or should know) that -phobic means “someone afraid of something”.
Therefore, this adjective refers to someone afraid of dying. Voila!
A very good book which emphasizes learning the roots of words is Word Power Made Easy by Norman Lewis.
(b) Flash Cards: Another very popular and effective method is using flash cards for writing down words and their meanings. I used flash cards to write down not only the different meanings but also examples of usage for particularly difficult words. I went through them every night and every morning.
(c) Read, Read and Read: I know that most people begin GRE preparations with a short window of time but if you are smart enough to be starting a year or 2 years early, the one thing that I cannot stress enough is the importance of reading. It may be newspapers or periodicals, sports or automotive magazines, fiction novels. Classic literature or anything else with a relatively richer vocabulary that you enjoy reading. Just reading will not help you prepare, however. The point is that anytime you come across a word that you have not seen before or do not remember, look it up right there and then in the dictionary and enter it on a flash card along with the usage. At the end of the day, force yourself to write a paragraph in which you use every new word that you came across today. This turned out to be very useful for me.
(d) Practice Makes Perfect: For certain questions like Reading Comprehension exercises, all of the above will certainly help you but you must keep practicing. You know what else helps with RCs? General Reading!! If you are able to read, say, today’s editorial and understand the premise behind and also the arguments the author makes to support or disprove that premise, you will have no problems with these kind of questions.
