Five Music Albums Packed with GRE Vocab
Some song writers really like their vocab! While you probably won’t pick up a lot of GRE words listening to Justin Beiber, here are just a couple suggestions where you might actually enjoy picking up some new vocab.
1. Tidal, Fiona Apple. A 90s classic, if you were a teenage girl in the 90s. Pop in a copy of Tidal on your drive to work and you’ll be exposed to words such as undulate, appeasing, embers, carrion, divination, acquaint, resounded, coercion, inversion, stifled, deviant, sullen, oblivion, cunning, condescend, abound, enrapture, wary, reverence, endeared, discern, oblige, covet, demeanor, contusion, adagio, intrusion, and endeavor.
2. HMS Pinafore, Gilbert and Sullivan. Okay, seriously, any Gilbert and Sullivan you can get yourself to enjoy is going to fill you with vocab words. This show alone has got saucy, frivolous, depraved, resigned, melodious, consolation, menial, pine, gallant, eloquence, pennant, sprightly, articled, tar, dictatorial, furl, scorn, domineering, tyrant, protrude, audacious, anguish, ignoble I didn’t even make it through half of the songs. And this might be the lightest on vocab of all the Gilbert and Sullivan choices.
3. Black on Both Sides, Mos Def. If you’re a rap fan, this is a fantastic album that you probably already have in your collection. If not, you might check it out if you want the chance to pick up words such as armament, sentiment, brandish, dispossessed, rivalry, saturated, infatuate, glisten, nemesis, scrutinize, staccato, vibrantly, apparition, odyssey, treacherous, testament, beneficent, manifest, reverence, temperament, firmaments, ubiquitous, ephemera, and flagrant, to name just a few.
4. Aladdin, Walt Disney. Where can you find the words immense, barbaric, coterie, hordes, menagerie, gawk, grovel, asunder, flunky, whim, warble, terminal, genuflect, nauseous, obnoxious? On the Aladdin soundtrack. Disney soundtracks have got all kinds of vocab words: consternation, precocious, deride, prattle, minions, qualm, route, derogate, pontificate, reprimand, prattle, provincial, fathom, illustrious, meticulous, sordid, flotsam, fakir, vulgar, licentious, jetsam, repented, idle, atrocious, meticulous, tenacity, incessantly, and blighter are all hiding out in Disney soundtracks. Hey, they have a lot of rhyming to do!
5. For the Roses, Joni Mitchell. If you sing along with For the Roses, you’ll find yourself using laden, furrowed, bustled, bedlam, tenement, gristle, rambling, folly, paranoia, scrutinize, buckle, resounding, speculation, undermined, resigned, dismal, scorn, tithe, refinement, contempt, and unfettered.
Should you learn all your GRE vocab from the radio? Definitely not. But start listening for words you don’t know in songs and finding out what they mean. If you start integrating your GRE studying into your daily life, going after words you come across but can’t really define, things are going to stick with you in a way that flashcards alone never will.