Disabled Student's Guide: Studying Vocabulary for the GRE

If you need to take the GRE sometime in the near future, you've probably already looked at a few vocabulary word lists. Most of the word lists have anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 words in them. Even if you only study a list of the most common words, you're still stuck studying over 100 words. Studying for the GRE can be difficult for anyone, but trying to learn thousands of new words with a reading disability can be a daunting task. Luckily, there are a few tactics that will help you maximize what you can get out of your study time.

Don't Procrastinate!

First of all, you'll want to start studying these vocabulary words as soon as possible. This is not something that you can reasonably put off until the last minute. Even if your classmates might be able to breeze through this section of the GRE due to their reading habits, you are not likely to be able to get through this part quickly. Set aside at least a month to study vocabulary, preferably three months or more for better results. If you already have procrastinated and don't have that kind of time, my best advice at this point is to focus on one of the lists of the most frequently used GRE words.

Glance Over the Words

Take a quick look at all the words you will need to learn before you begin reading their definitions word for word. This will help to give you an idea of how much you'll need to study. If you already know most of these words, good for you. If not, it's time to start some serious studying.

Read All of the Words and Definitions

This part is going to take a lot of time and is unfortunately very difficult. Unfortunately, it is necessary to actually read the words and definitions. If you have a computer program where you can scan in the words and have the computer read, do that. If not, just pace yourself and try to get done with as much as you can each day. If there are quizzes in the study book you're using, you can either do these quizzes now or wait until later. I enjoyed taking the quizzes at this stage just to see how I was doing. Taking quizzes can also help to reduce the monotony of this horrible task.

Make Recordings

Once you've read each word and definition a single time, you'll probably realize something. You still don't know all these words. Now you have a better understanding of most of them, but you couldn't solidly define them or produce antonyms on demand. People without a reading disability would probably just read these word lists over and over again until they understood the words sufficiently. Unfortunately, for those of us with reading disabilities, that is way too time consuming. Not to mention wholly unpleasant.

So here's how you're going to avoid reading these words and definitions multiple times: you will have to make recordings of these words to listen to them later on audio. How you do that is up to you, but there are a few recommendations that I have to offer. If possible, use a computer program like Kurzweil to scan in the vocabulary lists and then convert them into audio files. This method will not involve any reading on your part so it is obviously preferable. If you don't have access to such equipment however, you'll be stuck with the manual method. This will involve you reading the words out loud into a microphone and gradually putting a list of all the words you don't know into audio format. It helps to use a talking dictionary to verify that you are pronouncing the words correctly. If you are lucky enough to have a friend who is also studying for the GRE, you might be able to get them to help you with making these recordings. Otherwise, unfortunately you'll be stuck making them yourself. The good news is, once you've made some recordings you can start listening to them over and over right away. This will help you to learn the words even when you don't feel like putting in the tons of effort required to actually physically read these words from paper. I think this step is very important for being able to learn the words. If reading isn't easy for you, don't trick yourself into thinking you'll force yourself to actually read the words over and over just because this is the GRE. Make those recordings and save yourself the pain of reading over and over.

Now It's Time for Flash Cards!

A lot of people make the mistake of making flash cards immediately. Unfortunately, making thousands of flash cards just takes way too much work. So I would recommend waiting until you've been listening to the recordings for awhile and you're already familiar with most of the GRE vocabulary words. Now you'll want to quickly glance over your list of words again. Put a mark by each word that you still do not know the meaning of. The words you mark off are the words you are going to make flash cards of. Make the flash cards any size you want and use whichever colors will help you read them more easily when you're studying them later. There is no point in making great flash cards if you aren't ever going to look at them. Keep them simple and look at them daily.

At this point, these words should be solidly stuck in your memory. If you're still unsure of yourself, you can always try writing your own sentences using the words, making flash cards of antonyms, and utilizing other methods of learning vocabulary. Even though learning new words may seem to be an insurmountable task, it is not so bad if you break up the work into segments and do the least amount of reading possible. Despite your disability, you too can learn this vocabulary and take the GRE successfully.