More Illustrated Word Smart

Rating:
Summary: picture perfect
Review: A fun and painless way to introduce new vocabulary, and a way to review previous school lessons. My 15, 16, and 17 year-olders enjoy the pictures/humor--they banter about the examples. But, most importantly--they remember the words!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: 250 Words can only be a small part of a vocabulary program
Review: How To Double Your Vocabulary

Despite advertising hype, no ONE book will double your vocabulary, but reading several vocabulary-building books can double your vocabulary. Different vocabulary-building books have different words and different explanations. If you don't learn a word from one book, you can learn it from another book.

Any vocabulary-building book will have many words, a fourth to half the book, that you already understand. You can always skip or skim the easy-to-you words.

Varied, incomplete word selection is another reason for using several books. Some books just take words used on past-standardized tests, neglecting other words. Other books, limit their words to words based on word roots, neglecting others. Often authors have thrown in personal favorite words, even if others rarely use the words. If you see a word in two or three books, it's generally a need-to-know word.

Cartoon/Mnemonic vocabulary books have their fans who like the mnemonic memory aids, which are useful before tests. If you don't like cartoons with mnemonic reminders, don't buy this book. The main weakness of Vocabulary Cartoons is with only one word and one cartoon per page, these books may only have a few hundred words and are expensive per word. Audio vocabulary books such as Elite Word Power, let you hearing each word pronounced correctly, helpful for improving speaking vocabulary.

Rating:
Summary: overly elementary
Review: I bought this book thinking that it would be a good starting point to get some new words into my vocabulary for the general GRE. I don't have an extensive vocabulary by any means, and even I knew at LEAST 85% of the words in this book. If you're looking to prep for a standardized exam, don't bother wasting your money or time on this book.

Rating:
Summary: Great for busy non-native speakers
Review: I was studying for GMAT and did not have much time to memorize a thousand words or even mental capacity even if I quite my job and had time. The book is pretty good for not too cool vocabulary wizards. I knew about 25% of the words that it had such as prolific or excentric but there were some good ones that I still remember such as vociferous and verdant. Generally, a very pleasant book. It has good white paper and each page has one I liked it because I could go really fast (since I knew a few words from each chapter). Remebering was easy too, but forgetting was not hard either. Sometimes I caught myself that I would remember the picture but would not remember the definition. In any case, this is a much faster way to learn words than mere memorizing. Even though I give it 4 out of 5, this is a great book!

Rating:
Summary: Good selection, lots of errors
Review: The words selected were relevant and commonplace on the GRE. However, in the practice tests there are many errors. In addition, several of the definitions are not as precise as in other books. A good book to start with, but supplement it with something more academic.