GRE Forum Archive
4 postsPage 1 of 1
- tazeen_noman
- Forum Guests
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Mon Apr 16, 2012 5:56 am
which thesaurus should I use?
which thesaurus, for example rojet's, webster's, oxford, chaber's, etc...would you suggest for gre students?
- tommywallach
- Manhattan Prep Staff
- Posts: 1917
- Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2011 11:18 am
Re: which thesaurus should I use?
Hey Tazeen,
They're all good. Honestly, a dictionary is more important. Thesaurus' are fun, because you can quickly learn a lot of words in the same family, but the bigger thing is learning definitions, for which a dictionary is key.
I can already see the next question coming: which dictionary? But honestly, every major brand-name dictionary is fine for GRE purposes.
-t
They're all good. Honestly, a dictionary is more important. Thesaurus' are fun, because you can quickly learn a lot of words in the same family, but the bigger thing is learning definitions, for which a dictionary is key.
I can already see the next question coming: which dictionary? But honestly, every major brand-name dictionary is fine for GRE purposes.
-t
- cocoshin
- Students
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2012 2:01 pm
Re: which thesaurus should I use?
I highly suggest using thesaurus.com. It's fast, easy, and convenient. Not only did I find it useful for finding obscure synonyms, but I also found non-clunky one or two word definitions there too.
Here's the look-up strategy I used for my vocab study- When you look up a GRE word on thesaurus.com (take recalcitrant, for example) you get a two word definition (disobedient, uncontrollable) and a list of synonyms -obviously necessary for the sentence equivalence questions- which you can scan for words you don't know (perhaps fractious, intractable, refractory, and untoward). Write them all down on your flash cards and make flash cards for the other words as well. Don't forget to scroll down and make sure you know definitions and synonyms for alternate meanings.
Another advantage to using that site is they just started this new "word dynamo" vocab quiz section which is fun and has lots of GRE words.
Good luck!
Here's the look-up strategy I used for my vocab study- When you look up a GRE word on thesaurus.com (take recalcitrant, for example) you get a two word definition (disobedient, uncontrollable) and a list of synonyms -obviously necessary for the sentence equivalence questions- which you can scan for words you don't know (perhaps fractious, intractable, refractory, and untoward). Write them all down on your flash cards and make flash cards for the other words as well. Don't forget to scroll down and make sure you know definitions and synonyms for alternate meanings.
Another advantage to using that site is they just started this new "word dynamo" vocab quiz section which is fun and has lots of GRE words.
Good luck!
- tommywallach
- Manhattan Prep Staff
- Posts: 1917
- Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2011 11:18 am
Re: which thesaurus should I use?
Hey All,
Just one thing to add. Thesaurus.com is fine, but I imagine we're talking about an offline way to study here. The problem with any website is that each individual word requires a click, a loading time, etc. And I actually think that time makes the studying of words much slower.
So, not to be a luddite (look it up!), but I'd recommend you try to do the majority of your vocab study offline. That being said, Cocoshin's advice about looking up other synonyms you don't know is great.
That being said, Word Dynamo is AWESOME, so thanks for letting me know about that!
-t
Just one thing to add. Thesaurus.com is fine, but I imagine we're talking about an offline way to study here. The problem with any website is that each individual word requires a click, a loading time, etc. And I actually think that time makes the studying of words much slower.
So, not to be a luddite (look it up!), but I'd recommend you try to do the majority of your vocab study offline. That being said, Cocoshin's advice about looking up other synonyms you don't know is great.
That being said, Word Dynamo is AWESOME, so thanks for letting me know about that!
-t
4 posts Page 1 of 1