23 topics
Vocabulary and word study, built to stick
A word copied off a list on Monday has exactly one route back into your memory, which is why it is gone by Friday. Roots, families and use give it several. Once you know that bene- means good, benevolent stops being a word you recall and starts being a word you can rebuild — and you notice you have already met that root in benefit, benign and beneficiary without ever being taught it.
Where students get stuck
I memorise the list, pass the quiz on Friday, and forget it all by June
That is not a memory problem, it is a scheduling one. Reading a definition ten times in one sitting feels productive and produces almost nothing durable; retrieving it cold, four times across three weeks, produces a word you keep. Two changes do most of the work. First, test yourself rather than reread — cover the definition and try to produce it, because the effort of failing to recall is what strengthens the trace. Second, space the sessions out and let the gap grow: today, in two days, in a week, in three weeks. Add one sentence you wrote yourself for each word, about something real, and you have given the word a second hook.
I know what the word means but I keep using it wrong
Definitions carry denotation. Sentences also need connotation and collocation, and those are learned by exposure rather than lookup. Childish and childlike both mean like a child; one is an insult and one is not. Slim, slender, skinny and gaunt all denote thinness and are not interchangeable in any sentence you would submit. Words also keep company: you make a decision and take a photograph, and swapping the verbs sounds foreign even though both are grammatical. The practical move is to learn words in chunks rather than alone — write down the whole phrase you met it in, not just the headword.
There are hundreds of roots and prefixes. Where do I start?
Start with the negations, because they are the highest-yield thing in the whole system and they unlock words you have never seen. Un-, in-, im-, il-, ir-, non-, dis-, a- and anti- between them flip the meaning of an enormous share of academic vocabulary, and recognising one instantly halves an unknown word. Next take the position and direction set — pre-, post-, sub-, super-, inter-, trans-, circum- — then the number roots, then a small handful of heavy Latin verbs like mit/miss (send), spec (look), duc (lead) and port (carry). That is perhaps forty items, and it will do more for you than four hundred memorised definitions.
I can’t work out an unfamiliar word from context
Context clues are not one skill, they are four, and knowing which is present tells you where to look. A definition clue restates the word, usually after a comma or the word or. A contrast clue is signalled by but, unlike, however, or whereas, and tells you the word means roughly the opposite of something nearby. An example clue follows such as or including. A cause-and-effect clue sits after so, because, or therefore. Scan for those signal words first. Worth knowing honestly: when none of them is present, context often narrows a word only to positive or negative, which is frequently enough for a comprehension question and not enough to use it yourself.
Words with more than one meaning trip me up on tests
Yield, table, sanction, cleave, dust, screen. Some have unrelated senses; a few, called contronyms, are their own opposites — to sanction is either to permit or to punish, to cleave is to split or to cling. Test writers like these precisely because the familiar meaning is a trap. The reliable move is to settle the part of speech before the meaning. If the sentence needs a verb and you were thinking of the noun, you were reading the wrong entry. Then read the sentence with your candidate meaning substituted in full, out loud if you can, and check the sentence still makes sense as English.
What's covered
Vocabulary & Word Study topics you can work through with a tutor, generate practice on, or turn into flashcards and a study plan.
Word structure
- Greek and Latin roots
- Prefixes and their meanings
- Suffixes and part-of-speech shifts
- Word families and derivations
- Etymology and borrowed words
Meaning in context
- The four types of context clue
- Denotation and connotation
- Shades of meaning and synonym choice
- Multiple-meaning words and contronyms
- Figurative versus literal use
Academic and subject vocabulary
- High-frequency academic word list terms
- Subject-specific terminology
- Command words in exam questions
- Register and formality
- Collocations and set phrases
Study strategies
- Flashcards and spaced retrieval
- Keeping a personal word log
- Using a dictionary and thesaurus well
- Reading widely for incidental learning
Where it is assessed
- Vocabulary in reading comprehension
- Sentence completion questions
- Synonym and antonym items
- Spelling patterns and morphology
Vocabulary & Word Study questions
Isn’t this just flashcards? I already have an app for that.
Flashcards are part of it and they are here, but a card only ever tests recognition of a definition you already wrote. The gap most students have is production — using the word correctly in a sentence with the right register and the right partner words. That is what the live voice session adds: you use the word out loud, and you get told when it sounds off and why. The arcade games and quizzes are built from your own word list rather than a generic one.
How many new words should I be learning a week?
Fewer than you think, and reviewed more often than you think. Ten to fifteen words a week that you actually retrieve on a schedule will beat fifty that you meet once. If the list is set by a teacher and you have no say in the number, spend your effort on the review schedule instead: short sessions spread across the week rather than one long session the night before.
Will learning roots help me on a standardised test?
It helps, with an honest limit. Roots are excellent for narrowing an unfamiliar word to a general sense and for eliminating two wrong options, which is often all a multiple-choice item requires. They are less reliable for precise meaning, because words drift from their roots — a nice word once meant ignorant. Use morphology to narrow, then use the sentence around the word to decide.
My weak vocabulary is hurting me in science and history, not English. Does that count?
That is the more common version of the problem. Most subject reading fails on academic connectives and command words rather than on rare nouns: nevertheless, insofar as, evaluate, account for, to what extent. You can bring the textbook page or the exam paper, hold it to the camera, and work through the terms that are actually blocking you in that subject.
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