Building a good vocabulary helps in not only getting a good GRE verbal score but also expressing your thoughts clearly in writing. A good vocabulary means that you know the words so well that you can use them with confidence. The GRE verbal section mainly tests the width and depth of your vocabulary; hence, it is important that you build up your vocabulary well in advance of the GRE test. Building your GRE vocabulary word list is not necessarily a difficult chore if you use some proven strategies for improving your vocabulary.
Reading good books will help you improve your GRE vocabulary. But you must possess a genuine love of words, else reading may not really help. As you read, your mind must be on the lookout for new words; you should record them immediately. Words are always used in context and if you focus a little you will be able to get a sense of the new word before looking the word up in a dictionary. When you need to recall the word later, it will be easy to recall the word by remembering the context in which the word was used.
Students often overlook the humble dictionary and the thesaurus as useful tools for GRE verbal prep. These are two great tools that will help you sharpen your GRE vocabulary and improve your GRE verbal score. Befriend both the dictionary and the thesaurus as you start your GRE study. They will also help you when you take the GRE practice tests or the GRE vocabulary review toward the end of the study phase. A thesaurus has a lot of words that most GRE study guides may not even list. Find a dictionary that shows examples of sentences where the word is used. This will help you in remembering the word because of the principle of building vocabulary through elaboration.
Another great source of new words is the Reader’s Digest column “It Pays to Increase Your Word Power”. Every edition of Reader’s Digest has this column and lists some new words. Some of them may not be really useful for the GRE test but many of them are. If you are a regular reader of this magazine, then it is worthwhile to spend time reading and assimilating the words given in this column.
An avid user of the Internet can also subscribe to sites that will send you a “Word of the day”. Even if it is only a single word, it will go a long way in helping you with the GRE verbal section of the test. You can even subscribe to a number of such sites so that you receive 10-15 words each day (though studies suggest the average person should aim to learn no more than 8 words a day). You can even create a database of new words using vocabulary-building software like Ultimate Vocabulary, which will serve as a GRE vocabulary list later.