BUILDING UP YOUR VOCABULARY!

The season is of MBA entrance exams and one of the most important aspects of it is Vocabulary tests. Standardized tests usually include three main groupings of vocabulary questions: Definitions, synonym and antonym recognition, and word analogies.

How to prepare for Verbal section?
 Each and every one of us has a different way of learning new things and so there can’t be any one way for all of us to prepare.

(a) It’s all about the roots: Blindly stuffing the meaning of words into your brain by going through some list is the worst way to prepare for this section. You will have to remember unmanageably large chunks of information. The trick is to remember words together as groups and then the storage efficiency will be much higher. The easiest way to remember groups of words is to via their etymology, or the way that the word originated. If you remember the roots, you will be able to infer the meaning of even a completely new word that you encounter for the first time. Let’s look at an example. Consider the word euthanasia. If you learn the roots of this word, you will learn that:

• eu- is a Greek root, meaning “good”
• -thanasia is derived from the Greek “Thanatos” who was the god of death.
Therefore, the complete word means “good death”, which is what we know. Now, say you come across the word thanatophobic. Chances are that you have not seen this word before. No need to panic !
Roots will always help you out:
• We know that thanato- refers to “death”.
• Everyone knows (or should know) that -phobic means “someone afraid of something”.
Therefore, this adjective refers to someone afraid of dying. Voila !

(b) Flash Cards: Another very popular and effective method is using flash cards for writing down words and their meanings.

(c) Read, Read and Read: Most people begin preparations with a short window of time. I do not insist on reading very thing that comes your way, but it may be newspapers or periodicals, sports or automotive magazines, fiction novels, even classic literature or anything else with a relatively richer vocabulary that you enjoy reading. But this is not the final step. After this you have to use these newly found words in your essays or articles.

(d) Practice Makes Perfect: For certain questions like Reading Comprehension
exercises, all of the above will certainly help you but you must keep practicing. You know what else helps with RCs? General Reading!! If you are able to read, say, today’s editorial and understand the premise behind and also the arguments the author makes to support or disprove that premise, you will have no problems with these kind of questions.

Tips for Answering Synonym/Antonym Recognition Items

1. Use the “divide and conquer” principle as you search for the answer. Look for      prefixes, roots, and suffixes that give clues to meanings.

2. Read every word carefully. Don’t be fooled by answer choices that look or sound like      a word that could be the answer. For example, if you are asked to find a synonym for     anecdote and one of your answer choices is cure, don’t be hasty. You might confuse     anecdote with antidote, a word that sounds somewhat similar.

3. With very few exceptions, the correct answer will be the same part of speech as the     word given. If the given word is a verb, its synonym or antonym will also be a verb.

4. Eliminate all obviously wrong choices. Then, if the particular test you are taking does     not penalize you for guessing and you have eliminated all but two possible choices,     make an educated guess. (This approach should be your last resort. Guessing should     never be your primary test-taking strategy.)

5. Remember that, as with definition test items, you are being asked to find the best     answer rather than the “absolutely right” answer. Very few words have synonyms that are completely identical in meaning or antonyms that are completely opposite in meaning.

Word Analogies

In a word analogy test item, you have to match two pairs of terms that demonstrate the same relationship. Usually, one pair of terms is provided. First, you must identify the relationship between those two words. Then, from among the answer choices, you need to find another pair of words that have the same relationship.

In the item below, choose the pair of words whose relationship is most similar to that of the first pair.

HARD: NAILS::

a steep : mountain

b loud : bell

c light : feather

d soggy : ground

Answer: a b c d

The correct answer is c: The relationship between the words is one of characteristic-to object: hard is a descriptive quality of nails. Option c is the only answer choice that also states this relationship. Just as nails are hard, feathers are light. (Think of the clichés “hard as nails” and “light as a feather.”) But steepness is not necessarily a quality of mountains, nor loudness a quality of bells, nor sogginess a quality of ground.

Word analogies are based on many possible relationships. Here are several that are most

commonly used in analogy test items:

synonym-antonym                  synonym-synonym

person-to-characteristic          worker-to-tool

greater degree-to-lesser          degree part-to-whole

cause-effect                            group-to-member

worker-to-created object        person-to-task

class-to-species                      tool-to-purpose

action-to-object                      worker-to-workplace

object-to-characteristic          time-to-place

Other relationships include associational, hierarchical, mathematical, symbolic, gender, and even grammatical. In fact, just about any way that two things can be related is likely to show up on an analogy test.

Tips for Attacking Word Analogies

1. First, phrase the given analogy in a complete sentence: “Egg is to chicken as _____ is

to _____.”

2. Specify the relationship between the first pair of words, and revise your sentence

Accordingly: “An egg is a product of a chicken as a _____ is a product of a _____.”

3. Examine the answer choices for the closest possible match to the relationship you have identified in the first pair of words. As you consider each possible answer, you will often gain some insight that prompts you to revise your statement of the original pair’s relationship. The most obvious relationship may not be the one that the analogy is presenting. You may have to make your statement of the relationship more general, more specific, or completely different from what you originally thought it was. For example: “A chicken comes from an egg as a _____ comes from a _____.”

4. Look for parallel structure. If the given pair in the analogy is in part-to-whole order, the correct answer should also be in part-to-whole order, rather than whole-to-part.

5. The best answer always fulfills all aspects of the relationship exhibited by the first pair. Don’t be misled by partially correct answer choices that do not fully express the relationship that exists between the given pair of words.

HINT There is no way to prepare for specific analogy test items, but if you practice answering analogies in test-preparation books and become familiar with the most common analogy relationships, you will have a better chance of succeeding on analogy tests.

At the end just remember one thing the “ROME WAS NOT BUILT IN A DAY”.

All the Best !