Word Smart: Building an Educated Vocabulary
by Adam Robinson, Princeton Review
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Book Summary Information
Author: Adam Robinson, Princeton ReviewEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-08-07
ISBN: 0375762183
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: Princeton Review
Book Reviews of Word Smart: Building an Educated Vocabulary
Book Review: Wordy sensations!
Summary: 5 Stars
After reading this book, sundry longings have pervaded my English-teacher heart insofar as easy-to-understand vocabulary is concerned. I do not want to be taken wrongly, for I am not a man to be trifled with, and my students (I think) obey me to perfection. Singularly enough, my vocabulary control is often a trifle too exaggerated than too free. Also, I have found this is felt by many a teacher of such stamp. So, before my vocabulary spree gets on the wane, I must do something about it and decided to write these simple words before any deleterious compunctions arouse in my soul.
Not very rarely do I hear students complain about their meager progress in their studies of English. Wanting to reach good berths, they seem all too often demure and subservient persons, therefore they consider themselves abject nonentities, clinging (i.e. cringing) to a number of non-existing concepts their empirically based experiences might have led them to. It would be of great solace to them if they would relinquish the trifle promises of many a newfangled school that (not little) is advertised in feuilletons of Sundays' newspapers. Would any teacher, in infinite love for students, have any idea what would stand them in good stead? viz., what building blocks of language resources could and ought to be at their beck and call?
We've seen from our experience that many a student will expect us, teachers, to be a divine source of knowledge they've all craved. Only the parvenus are able, to a certain extent, to go around the world with a quondam tutor in waiting. Moreover, the irksome daily task of practicing at a very steady rhythm bewilders, vexes and discourages them fully. Thus, examples of frustrations and major thwartings have long been seen to gush forth like water from a fountain. Wherefore are they browbeaten by their vapid evinced unsuccesses?
Many times I feel like filling the gap there is there. Many will blame the hurry-scurry common to everybody in our lives. Any excuse not to invest time, money and/or/also effort. In my most sincere opinion, success comes through the willingness to work diligently however paltry one's constancy might be. Maybe one is afraid of being overexposed towards injudicious criticism. But then we come to the problem of factitious expression in everyday language, the goods thereof are none.
Why will many students carry on their classroom practices in jest? Not to mention homework practices? What could stem this mound of formidable drawbacks? With all forthcoming media could our students render good production, which eventually would call forth a sense of rapture? And could this rapt confidence obliterate former thwartings asunder? Or are their old platitudes still bolstered up unconsciously?
That there has to be a sifting in these areas no one doubts. But none is willing to fully take on the responsibility of eradicating one's listless guilt of slovenly practice. Slackened pace of study is usually not perceived by most teachers.
What bustles me up in the plaintive "Alack!" I hear from most students. I wish I could use a magic wand and turn their vocabulary skill into deftly unfettered command, since I believe the latter could be contrived by a wide vocabulary range. Yet, unobtrusively, we overlook its manifold merging aspects, whereupon a student behaves like a captive lass tied to the tail of a hussar's charger. Eventual sense of failure is their lot. Again, their hopes are fallen through and we feel like a sere and withered leaf: no feedback plausible, scanty joys of communicating in English.
For the sake of perspicuity in the students' rendering of vocabulary, I deem that vagaries undermine them into such a groove of triviality and actual sluggishness that it gives vent to the negative marketing of a school, to say the least: the notorious reputation bugbear. We should have a guild where a new philosophy of language mastery could be pointed out, studied and applied. Many a student and teacher, wont to the varnish of sham culture and all its excrescencies, fails to be sage. The guileless innocence imbued in many a student must be nipped in the bud, otherwise many will trippingly bawl out vocabulary inaccuracy. Alas.
Earnest students have got to be well guided, but not fooled or pestered with somber warnings. Many teachers usually comply with so-called frequent mistakes and hypocritically look askance if they happen to be warned about their students' vocabulary malfeasance.
One might mistakenly think my wonderings are of impervious purport, and that it is all too easy to say guileless words wherewith I get my point across: the last thing there is in my worry is sanctimoniousness. When the forlorn students' true eagerness to learn is deeply understood and their agogness beckons in the inaccuracy darkness, then, by dint of regret, will they make up the picture that will bring round to them.
I state that unflagging perseverance is the key to derive the authority whence all success can be gauged or measured. By such success we will see their (the students') mien be changed in face of all concoctions of frustrations.
Muddled vocabulary usage demands modification bedded in this wise. Without ominous postures, in so far as vocabulary mastery is concerned, can students pass muster and the barrenness of their lurking fears will not prevent them from achieving the curule chair of expedient vocabulary mastery. We should be bound to eschew any quivering fear of easy vocabulary command and do our best to ban all evils, proudly and firmly wielding students from whirl and whirlpool, out of the abyss of failure.
Finally, remembering to avoid getting carried away and thus writing a pizzazz spree gobbledygook, I have tried to voice my feelings here very briefly and concisely because my hectic daily schedule wouldn't possibly allow me enough time to give them the full development they really deserve.
Summary of Word Smart: Building an Educated Vocabulary
The words people use say a lot about them. Some words say that they are smart, persuasive, and informed. Others say that they don't know what they're talking about. Knowing which words to use and how to use them are keys to getting the most from one's mind and to communicating effectively.To find out which words readers absolutely need to know, The Princeton Review researched the vocabularies of educated adults. The Princeton Review analyzed newspapers from The New York Times to The Wall Street Journal, magazines from Time to Scientific American, and books from current bestsellers to classics. Editors threw out words that most people know and focused on the words that people misunderstand or misuse.
TPR also combed through the SAT and other standardized tests to determine which words are tested most frequently. In this updated third edition, editors give readers the most important words they need to know to score higher.
Includes special lists covering:
? Common usage errors
? Most frequently tested words on standardized tests
? Foreign phrases, abbreviations, and terms readers need to know to understand finance, science, computers, and the arts
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