by Vince Kotchian

If you’re serious about preparing for the SAT, you’re working on learning vocabulary on a daily basis. The sentence completion questions often come down to whether you know the words or not, and even the reading passages will test your vocabulary. Hopefully you’re treating learning vocabulary as learning, not memorizing. Not only will knowing the definitions of words help you for the SAT, but it will pay off in college and beyond. Hey, you speak English every day – you might as well know more of the language!

One of the best ways to study vocabulary is by what I call a creative flashcard approach: “creative” – as opposed to “passive.” A passive approach is buying a box of cards and studying them. A more active approach is actually making your own cards. And this is important, because you’re more apt to remember something you’ve personally made.

However, not all flashcards are created equal. A really useful flashcard has six important components:

1. On one side of the card, write the word and nothing else.
2. Write the word and a brief definition on the back in your words. By putting things into your own words, your brain has to process them more than just parroting a dictionary’s definition. But if you can’t put the definition into your own words without altering its meaning, use the dictionary’s.
3. Write the pronunciation of the word in normal terms. By “normal”, I mean without using the symbols a dictionary would. For instance, if your word is PRODIGAL, your pronunciation might be PRA-DIG-UL. I want you to be able to pronounce the word because, on the days you’re studying it, you should try to use it at least once in conversation and once in writing.
4. Come up with a mnemonic, or memory device, for the word. This is going to be another word or phrase that looks like or sounds like the word you’re trying to learn. For PRODIGAL, I like PRADA GAL. The definition of “prodigal” is “wasteful” – so picturing a “Prada gal” might remind you of that: a gal who buys Prada clothing, in the view of many, is wasting her money on expensive designer clothes.
5. Write a sentence using the word and its mnemonic. For example, The PRODIGAL Prada gal spent her whole paycheck on a $1200 pair of boots. You want a sentence that is emotionally stirring or funny and one that is easy to visualize.
6. Write some synonyms for the word, so you have other associations for it. M-w.com is a great resource for finding these.

Now, don’t worry too much if you can’t think of a clever mnemonic for every word. But try! I recommend trying to learn about 5 new words a day. Don’t forget to periodically review old words, too. Make a few piles of cards – the words you don’t know, the words you kind of know, and the words you definitely know. Your goal is to keep moving cards to the “know” pile. Don’t forget to review these once in a while, too, to make sure you still know all of them.

I’ve written a vocab mnemonics book for the SAT – SAT Vocab Capacity – which is available on Amazon. Click the book image below to view the book on Amazon.

If you have any questions about vocabulary studying, feel free to contact me through my website, vincekotchian.com. Happy studying, and good luck on the SAT!

-Vince Kotchian

Vince Kotchian has been working full-time as a San Diego SAT, ACT, and GRE tutor since 2008. He combines a rigorous approach to teaching the foundational skills and techniques necessary for mastery with friendliness, patience, and adaptability. In addition to tutoring, Vince volunteers for a couple of causes: Promises2Kids – which helps foster youth pursue higher education – and Y.A.L.L.A., which helps refugee children. In his spare time, he likes to run, hike, play sports, and appreciate how nice it is to live in a place where he can walk outside without worrying about the weather.

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