Editors of REA - GRE Contextual Vocabulary

Research & Education Association
61 Ethel Road West
Piscataway, New Jersey 08854
E-mail:

New GRE Contextual Vocabulary

Copyright 2012 by Research & Education Association, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission of the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Control Number 2011932499

ISBN-13: 978-0-7386-0903-4
ISBN-10: 0-7386-0903-X

GRE is a registered trademark of Educational Testing Service (ETS). All other trademarks cited in this publication are the property of their respective owners.

REA is a registered trademark of Research & Education Association, Inc.

H11

CONTENTS

Dear Student,

Although anyone can benefit from learning the vocabulary introduced in this book, you have most likely chosen the book because you plan to take the GRE and attend graduate or business school. Congratulations on pursuing this next step in your academic career!

As you know, performance on the GRE plays a critical role in the strength of applications to graduate and business programs. You may also know that beginning on August 1, 2011, the GRE General Test changed somewhat in form, content, and scoring. The new test is called the GRE revised General Test.

With respect to vocabulary, the Verbal Reasoning section of the GRE revised General Test now places greater emphasis on higher-level cognitive skills. From the test takers perspective, what this means is that the Verbal Reasoning section no longer contains questions that test vocabulary out of context. Antonyms and analogies have been dropped. As a result, all of the Verbal Reasoning questions now pertain to sentences or passages.

The revised Verbal Reasoning section is also distinctive in that it contains more reading comprehension questions, as well as new types of questions. All of these changes align the GRE revised General Test more closely with the academic expectations you will encounter in graduate or business school.

The three types of questions you will find in the revised Verbal Reasoning section are Reading Comprehension, Text Completion, and Sentence Equivalence.

Reading Comprehension questions appear in sets organized around passages. Some of these questions require you to select one answer choice out of five multiple-choice options. Others require you to choose one, two, or three answer choices out of three provided. A third type of Reading Comprehension question requires you to highlight a sentence in the passage that meets a certain description.

Text Completion questions consist of passages that contain one to three blanks. You are required to choose the word or words that best complete the passage.

Sentence Equivalence questions consist of a single sentence that contains a blank. You are required to choose two words from a list of six that would produce two sentences that are alike in meaning.

Detailed descriptions of these questions, as well as specific examples, are provided on the ETS website at: http://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/about/content . An overview of all changes to the GRE revised General Test can be found on the ETS website at http://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/know .

Ken Springer, Ph.D.
Department of Teaching and Learning
Simmons School of Education and Human Development
Southern Methodist University

Dr. Ken Springer is a professor of education at Simmons School of Education and Human Development at Southern Methodist University. Dr. Springer is active in both teaching and research, with more than 60 scientific publications and presentations to his credit. Since 2010 he has authored or co-authored the following books: Educational Research: A Contextual Approach and TExES: Generalist EC-6 . His recent work in English-language skill instruction includes co-authorship of REAs CLEP College Composition Exams , published in 2011.

OVERVIEW

This book is designed to improve your vocabulary. The focus is on the advanced vocabulary you will need for the GRE revised General Test. Having a well-developed vocabulary is useful in many settings and especially critical to successful performance on the GRE. In particular, the Verbal Reasoning section relies heavily on an understanding of advanced vocabulary. The quality of your responses to the Analytical Writing prompts depends in part on your knowing vocabulary that allows you to express your ideas clearly.

We use a contextual approach to teach new vocabulary. This approach does not rely on conventional flash-card methods. Rather, new words are introduced in meaningful contextsi.e., in passages, most of which consist of brief narratives. Numerous exercises, activities, and puzzles are then provided in order to reinforce your understanding of the new words. Through this approach, learning new words should be fun rather than just being limited to the use of flash cards and drills.

Outline of the Book

The book consists of six chapters:

provide context-based vocabulary instruction, along with exercises, activities, and games.

.

introduces strategies and resources you can use to build your vocabulary further.

presents a brief introduction to the GRE Verbal Reasoning section.

describes strategies that will help you do your best on the GRE Verbal Reasoning section.

Guide to the First Two Chapters

Following is some information that will be helpful as you read the chapters that provide instruction, and are the longest chapters in the book.

consist of 12 units apiece. Each unit begins with a story in which advanced vocabulary words are underlined. You will be asked to guess the meanings of these words, and the meanings will then be provided. Next you will work through a series of exercises, activities, and games that reinforce and test your understanding of the new words. These exercises and so on consist of matching, fill-in-the-blanks, puzzles, and more.

In , every third unit will consist of a review that provides additional exercises, activities, and games that cover what you learned in the previous two units. Most of the review units will also introduce one or two new words. Answers to all of the exercises, activities, and games in the main units and review units are provided at the end of each chapter.

ABOUT RESEARCH
& EDUCATION ASSOCIATION

Founded in 1959, Research & Education Association (REA) is dedicated to publishing the finest and most effective educational materialsincluding software, study guides, and test prepsfor students in elementary school, middle school, high school, college, graduate school, and beyond.

Today, REAs wide-ranging catalog is a leading resource for teachers, students, and professionals.

We invite you to visit us at www.rea.com to find out how REA is making the world smarter.

In addition to our authors, we would like to thank Pam Weston, Publisher, for setting the quality standards for production integrity and managing the publication to completion; Larry B. Kling, Vice President, Editorial, for his overall direction; Michael Reynolds, Managing Editor, for project management; Weymouth Design and Christine Saul, Senior Graphic Artist, for designing our cover; and S4Carlisle for typesetting this edition.

Overview