GMAT vocabulary list (>4800 words)

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GMAT vocabulary list (>4800 words)

by Jumuller » Sun Feb 16, 2014 5:01 am
Hi GMAT takers,

to prepare myself I was looking for a comprehensive list of vocabulary to learn. I've prepared a list of ~4800 words from wordnet. In case you want to use it too, you can find it here:
https://julesml.kinja.com/4500-words-you ... 1523852435

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by [email protected] » Sun Feb 16, 2014 8:26 pm
Hi Jumuller,

While this is an interesting resource, I don't believe that this is a practical way to go about studying for ANY Standardized Test, much less the GMAT. The idea that someone would go through a document, making sure that he/she understood the meaning of EVERY word in a 4800 word list is excessive and not a good use of one's time.

While there are certainly math vocabulary words, grammar rules and certain words/phrases that are necessary to dealing with CR/RC prompts, your study time would be better spent familiarizing yourself with GMAT material/concepts, learning the various approaches to dealing with each of the major questions types and working on your "mechanics" (pacing, endurance, organization, etc.).

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Rich
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by Jumuller » Mon Feb 17, 2014 3:25 am
Hi Rich

I randomly splitted the list into units of 100 words each and use my vocab trainer to learn whenever I'm on the train, have to spend time waiting and in the evenings. That way I extended my passive vocabulary for a few hundred words within a very short time. It's of course not a good use of time to focus on learning all the vocabulary but it's a good supplement to your other GMAT learning activities.
The point of the list is that it comprises many words that are not common in everday usage. Also you're able to use it in any form and language, so you're very flexible with it. Just load it onto your smartphone and make use of that extra time.

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by KevinRocci » Thu Mar 13, 2014 1:49 pm
Hi Jumuller,

I strongly agree with Rich here for a few reasons. I usually would pass over messages like this, but I feel quite strongly about not using a vocabulary list especially for the GMAT, and I feel compelled to dissuade students from using such a list.

First, the GMAT does not test vocabulary. Spending time learning vocabulary is not a wise use of your time when preparing for the GMAT, as Rich pointed out. Students should be learning about different question types in critical reasoning questions, common wrong answer traps in Reading Comprehension questions, or building the logical reasoning abilities in math. Students should also be reading extensively, which in turn will expose them to new vocabulary, but the point here is to become an active reader-not a dictionary of words and definitions.

Two, learning vocabulary from a list is a guaranteed way of not learning new words. To truly expand your vocabulary, and be successful in a tested environment, like on the GRE, you need to learn words in the context of reading. Just a list of words and definitions is not going to be useful when it comes to understand how a word is used in different situations, or in identifying clues in a passage that point to one word over another.

Three, you say that you were able to expand your "passive vocabulary" using these lists. What is "passive vocabulary"? Are these words you don't use but know the definition to? Again, any person trying to expand their lexicon needs to encounter words in the wild and use them in their writing and speech. There is only one type of vocabulary that people have and it is the one they use on a daily basis.

Jumuller, I think that you did create something quite interesting. And the way that you have packaged it and made it available for use to anyone is also awesome. I am a big advocate of making things public and open-source. The more information we share, the better off we all will be. So thank you in that regard. But, I don't think that your resource will be useful in this sphere. :)

Cheers and best of luck!

Kevin

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by Kekki » Sun Aug 23, 2015 5:34 am
I had to register for this just to say this.

Kevin and Rich, your response is utter BULLSH***. I don't know where you are from both, probably from the USA as you both seem kinda ignorant in regard of others, but as you should know the GMAT is an INTERNATIONAL test. With lots of people (including myself) whose 1st language is not English, for God's sake English is not even my 2nd language but my 3rd / 4th.

I for myself wanted to say THANK YOU Jumuller for this incredible big Vocabulary list.

Just for you guys who said that this list "will not be useful in this sphere". I did a CR questions which contained a lot of words I have never heard of in my life (eventhough I wouldn't say my English is that terrible) so I didn't really got the point of the text as I didn't know if those words were bad or good. Therefore I couldn't solve the question and ended with 3 answer choice. So I had to guess among those.
As I didn't understand many of those words I copied the text into the google translator and read it in my native language. As you probably know Google transaltions are really bad. However I was able to understand the point now and not only this but I was now able to answer the question in less than 45 seconds because this text was finally LOGICAL to me. It just made sense now.

I think there are a lot of people out there (including myself) who could use this vocabulary list and therefore improve their Verbal score as they finally might get the main idea of the text (RC, CR, SC).

It might be true that for English-Native this list is useless and they are better of with practising the questions but I can't do anything with the knowledge of how to approach an assumption question if I don't even understand the vocabulary.

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by Black5tar » Wed Jan 13, 2016 10:19 pm
Kekki wrote:I had to register for this just to say this.

Kevin and Rich, your response is utter BULLSH***. I don't know where you are from both, probably from the USA as you both seem kinda ignorant in regard of others, but as you should know the GMAT is an INTERNATIONAL test. With lots of people (including myself) whose 1st language is not English, for God's sake English is not even my 2nd language but my 3rd / 4th.

I for myself wanted to say THANK YOU Jumuller for this incredible big Vocabulary list.

Just for you guys who said that this list "will not be useful in this sphere". I did a CR questions which contained a lot of words I have never heard of in my life (eventhough I wouldn't say my English is that terrible) so I didn't really got the point of the text as I didn't know if those words were bad or good. Therefore I couldn't solve the question and ended with 3 answer choice. So I had to guess among those.
As I didn't understand many of those words I copied the text into the google translator and read it in my native language. As you probably know Google transaltions are really bad. However I was able to understand the point now and not only this but I was now able to answer the question in less than 45 seconds because this text was finally LOGICAL to me. It just made sense now.

I think there are a lot of people out there (including myself) who could use this vocabulary list and therefore improve their Verbal score as they finally might get the main idea of the text (RC, CR, SC).

It might be true that for English-Native this list is useless and they are better of with practising the questions but I can't do anything with the knowledge of how to approach an assumption question if I don't even understand the vocabulary.
Agree with Kekki, a big thank you indeed to Jumuller for sharing a good resource such as this for non-native English candidates