CAT 2012@ 10 tips to prepare & improve your Vocabulary for CAT 2012 Verbal Ability

July 10, 2012 - PRLog -- You must build a right strategy for your preparation. Unless you make a right plan, you will end up wasting your precious time. Agarwal suggests 10 tips to prepare for Vocabulary to help you score high in the Verbal Ability area of CAT 2012 exam.

1. Do not memorize long lists of new words: If you try to mug up long list of words before the exam, it will not be much helpful for you. Most of them are forgotten the next day as you just memorize them and not understand the meaning and root of the word. The words which are learnt in context and those which can be put to use in speech and writing shall form the part of the vocabulary.

2. Read at least one newspaper in detail: Do not go for surface reading or sweep the headlines only.  Select the editorials, articles; mark the new words as well as the words that you know but they have been used in different context. Try to guess the meaning of the word used in particular context. Then check the guess in dictionary, its correct spelling, pronunciation, and then finally, practice the new word. Frame sentences containing the word. Try to think how many times you have used the word during the day.  Speak out the sentences to yourself, standing before the mirror or whatever means you find to use the same.

3. More and more reading:  Read as much as possible.  Listening can be of use but the fast pace of speech does not give you sufficient time to think about the words, you do not understand. Whatever stuff you are reading, it has to be ensured that you have understood the same, with the difficult words duly searched and used.  If you do not understand the passage, you will get bored very soon. And by the time you reach the end of a sentence, you will forget what the beginning meant.

4. Listen carefully to conversations, speeches, the radio, television: Here you are able to have the visuals along with the audio. Do not simply relax but be attentive, while viewing and listening to news broadcasts, current affair programmes, documentaries etc.  It is advisable, to listen carefully to the persons, who in your opinion speak good English-as you feel the words spoken by them are in right spirit.

5. Usage restrictions must also be duly taken care of: You must also take care of the usage restriction when trying out synonyms given in dictionaries and thesauruses. The synonyms may have roughly the similar meaning as the word you originally looked up but the context in which they can be correctly used may be quite different.  
6. To avoid confusions, try to keep your first attempt at using a new word close to the way it was used when you made its acquaintance: Look at these sentences -  He is an utter idiot(Correct), This idiot is utter (Wrong). Utter can be used only before the noun it qualifies.  Suppose you come across a sentence – My friend is a consummate Accountant. Consummate, as you search for, means ‘greatly or supremely accomplished or skilled’.

7. Choose a good dictionary: Always look carefully at the examples given after a definition. They are chosen to show how the word is typically used.

8. Build up your word-Bank: Never be afraid of learning long words. At times they are easier to be well understood than any short word. The technique is to break the long word in parts as it must definitely be having particular root (the basic part), prefix or suffix which has a certain meaning. Prepare chart of roots, other prefixes, suffixes to the words, understand what you have prepared and start working on it.

9. Prepare Flash Cards: A simple and traditional method to improve the word power is to prepare the small cards with the words to be learned, written on one side and their synonyms & antonyms on the reverse side.  

10. Recommended Reading:

i) You can opt for such authors who give you rich but clear vocabularies like Evelyn Waugh, Anthony Burgess, James Thurbar, George Bernard Shaw, Graham Greene, Salman Rushdie, Herman Hesse,.

To read the previous MBAUniverse.com article on Vocabulary, click on the following link:

Boost your Vocabulary to crack Verbal Ability for CAT 2012