Reasoning by analogy is one of the most powerful ways to expand vocabulary. This is because analogies force you to think carefully about words, which helps you retain what you have learnt about the word:
- "A thread of thought operates in them [analogies] and true learning takes place, whereas in exercises that deal with disparate bits of information, retention is limited because thinking is not involved." (Ignoffo, 519).
An analogy, in this context, is an abbreviated form of a sentence completion exercise in which you must provide some of the sentence. Analogies often appear in GRE vocabulary questions (Graduate Record Examination).
For example, consider the following analogy:
- pilot : airplane :: sailor : boat
Analogies like this are read as "pilot is to airplane as sailor is to boat".
Analogy tests and exercises typically take the following form:
- novice : connoisseur :: — : expert
The student is asked to fill in the blank (—). Often, you are given multiple choices. In this example, your choices might be:
- neophyte
- demagogue
- epicure
- virtuoso
To get the right answer — neophyte — you need to reason that novice and neophyte mean the same thing and are opposites of connoisseur and expert. Thus, the exercise forces you to use a logical comparison-contrast mental pattern (Ignoffo, 520).
Other types of analogies force you to use other thought processes, such as thinking about degrees and proportions, logical order, relationships between parts of speech, and grammar.
The amount of thinking and elaboration that goes into answering analogy questions make analogies an even more powerful way to expand vocabulary than other methods, such as word lists, matching, and synonym-antonym exercises.
References
Matthew F Ignoffo, "The Thread of Thought: Analogies as a Vocabulary Building Method" (1980) 23(6) Journal of Reading 519.