Manhattan Prep GRE: 500 Essential Words

These flashcards are great. They are hardy, thorough, and informative. Almost all the flashcards come with the definition, a sentence, related words, and more information regarding the word (e.g. roots, history of the word, etc). The essential package is pretty easy, but it's still a great way to strengthen your vocabulary for the GRE and for daily life as well. They come with a hole punched in each corner and a ring. My methodology is as follows: take out chunks of 75 cards, in alphabetical order, and then study each chunk for 3-5 days until I know them all. Keep doing this until all 500 are covered. But, every week, I go over all of the other cards that I have previously completed. Once all the cards are done, just review the entire set about once a week until your test date. Good luck and prosperity in your academic endeavors!!

The content on these flash cards is more comprehensive than most others I have seen. There is a definition, then usage in a sentence; often times multiple uses in sentences, which helps to more thoroughly convey the meaning and how the word in more commonly used in practice. There are also synonyms, and often explanations of the etymology of the word in a way that is more useful than technical. Furthermore, related words are frequently added and differences noted in how these words are generally employed. The comprehensive content has been an aid in more quickly learning and retaining the meaning and proper usage of the vocabulary words. I wish they had more than 500 words!

These are by far the best way for me to learn new vocabulary. I looked at all kinds of different GRE vocab media, including flash card and activity apps, website vocab learning quizzes, and different books which took an incredible variety of approaches, including dictionary-like, thesaurus-like, grouping words by category, and activities getting you to absorb the meaning from context clues. In the end, I got this and the 500 Advanced Words sets because they had everything the books had in an easy-to-sort format. The first thing I did was start yanking out chunks of cards and separating them into three categories: Known, Review, and Study. The Known pile includes cards I don't have to look at again, but serve as a reminder of how much I already know! The Review pile includes cards that had a definition or partial definition I wasn't familiar with, but, for the most part, I knew the word. The Study pile was the scary pile of words I didn't know. Once I got over my fear of the size of the Study pile, I started pulling them out of the pile in groups, reviewing them from the front and the back, and taking advantage of their reminders, helpful hints, synonyms, and root words (all listed conveniently on the back). When I hit a rut in my focus, I began turning the cards into crossword puzzles using online crossword puzzle generators. And once I started being able to see my progress, which the cards make uniquely possible (i.e., my new fourth pile, "Learned" was getting bigger and bigger and eventually was bigger than the "Study" pile), I felt even more encouraged to tackle more of them. Someone told me before I started that you can't really learn vocabulary for the GRE. You either know it or you don't. Yeah, I'm here to tell you that's 100% incorrect. I can't believe how many new words I've learned! And I've got these cards to thank for it. I definitely recommend making the piles I talked about if you tend to get discouraged or anxious...it's a constant visual reminder of exactly where you are and how far you've come. (It does take a while to separate them, but it's worth it.) In short, I highly recommend getting these and the 500 Advanced Words sets in printed (vs. digital) format so that you can sort them. The cards are high quality with great example sentences, comparisons, synonyms, roots, and even silly hints that can help you remember complicated words. Separate out the words you know (go you!), then learn the ones you don't! Study on! We can do it!

Using these helped me score in the 92nd percentile on verbal reasoning (163). I took the advice of a previous reviewer and divided them into 3 piles for "known", "review", and "learn" words. I just took them to work for a few weeks and reviewed a couple here and there when I had down time and dedicated about an hour before bed on a few nights to review. Make sure to pay attention to the "relevant words" - some of them could have used their own card and I saw a few pop up on the GRE. A lot of the cards were pretty entertaining and it wasn't too boring to go through like you might expect, although some individual cards got a little too wordy that it was overwhelming. I did learn a lot, saw many of the words on the test, and can apply these words to daily life. I also used ETS verbal reasoning prep. I actually didn't find it necessary to buy the advanced set of words although it may have been helpful for the tougher questions. I really think a lot of doing well on this section depends on how many words you know, and I also think having an expansive vocabulary helps out with the analytical writing sections. By learning these words and doing practice verbal reasoning questions from ETS, I felt well-prepared before the test.

These cards are outstanding. The definitions are accurate and succinct, and are accompanied by example sentences, related words, and an explanation of the etymology of the word, either from latin/greek roots or other history. While that may seem extraneous, it really helps improve retention when you can see how the word exists in relation to other words and concepts. They seem to follow words used on the GRE pretty closely, at least from what I've seen in the official ETS practice tests.They are also fairly durable physically, and come with a key ring for use on the go, which made them great for use on the train, bus, in waiting rooms ,etc. If you're trying to improve your verbal score, this is a great place to start. I recommend going through them and dividing words up into 3 piles: Totally know, sort-of know, and no clue. From there, you can decide how often to review them and what outside resources you might need to use (like wordnik). Once you're done these, they have an equally fantastic set of 500 advanced words to really push you along.

Son palabras sensillas, pero te puede servir para repasar.

J'ai passé le GRE deux fois et ai obtenu la note de 158 puis 163 en Verbal grâce aux livres de Manhattan Prep. J'avais une connaissance assez lacunaire des 1000 mots de ce jeu et du set avancé la première fois que je l'ai passé et ai fait de nombreuses fautes. Après un second apprentissage de ces mots et maitrisant bien les 1000 j'ai pu faire seulement 4 erreurs sur 20 lors du test assurant un score dans le 92ème percentile. Ces cartes sont faciles à apprendre et de bonne qualité fournissant notamment de nombreux exemples qui permettent de retenir le "vocabulary in context". Par contre, il est essentiel d'appliquer les bonnes méthodes lors de l'apprentissage (ie ne pas les lire en série et essayer de les retenir), et de connaître quelques stratégies pour la résolution des "sentence completions" et "equivalences". En conclusion, je recommande fortement ces cartes mais à conditions de les coupler avec de nombreux practice tests et autres ressources d'entraînement !

Very good.

Wer möchte schon lange Vokabelkarten schreiben? Die Arbeit wird einem sehr erleichtert, denn hier steht nicht nur die Übersetzung drauf sondern auch verwandte Wörter und die jeweilige Vokabel in Aktion, also in Beispielsätzen. Zustäzlich sind noch teilweise Merkhilfen oder Abstammungen aufgeschrieben. Man bekommt also ein jeweiligen Zusammenhang beigebracht anstatt nur die Übersetzung zu sehen. Dies erleichtert das Merken sehr. Besser können Vokabelkarten nicht sein!!

※自分でも引くほど"英単語好き"なので、以下参考にならないかもしれません ・Barronの新形式GREむけ単語帳と、一部、重複します。が、そこは"ダブルリファレンス"の効果があると思って、前向きに考えました（ましょう） ・例文が豊富、語源の説明が興味深い、語彙自体の説明が面白いです。 ・当たり前ですが、暗記に時間を要しました ・英単語帳に慣れている私にとっては、カード形式は使いにくかったです（電車内で片手でパラパラめくれない、リング付属なのでいわゆる単語カードっぽくできますが、リング１つに収まる枚数が少ないので、リングは捨てました） ・肝心の本試験での登場頻度ですが、確かに本番で登場する語彙たちが集められています （時間がない方は、Essential だけで十分かもしれません。新形式ＧＲＥは単語の重要性はあまり高くないので）