5 Ways to Learn GRE Vocabulary with ChatGPT

Hi everyone～ I'm Shuo Lee from Word God Empire (字神帝國)! Many students use their winter break to start preparing for the GRE, and “vocabulary” is definitely the first hurdle to clear. Grinding through vocab books is dull, so put ChatGPT to work for you!

1. Ask ChatGPT for “memory tricks”

▍Rationale: GRE words are among the harder words to memorize. If you can get “multiple memory tricks” for a GRE word, you can approach the same word from several angles and remember it better.

▍Prompt: Provide some mnemonics for the word “__________.”

Fill in the blank with a word you find especially hard to memorize. Here's fastidious (meticulous) as an example (partial screenshot):

If you don't think ChatGPT's memory tricks are good enough, you can have it Regenerate response until you get one you're happy with.

2. Ask ChatGPT for “example sentences in context”

▍Rationale: Example sentences with context show you how to use a word better than a phrase on its own. ChatGPT's example sentences usually have enough clues and context for you to work out what a word means, which also builds your Contextual Guessing skills as a vocabulary-learning strategy.

▍Prompt: Make five sentences with the word “__________.”

Fill in the blank with a word you want to study in depth. Here's fastidious as an example (partial screenshot):

From the screenshot above, besides learning that fastidious can be followed by the preposition about, you can also deepen your understanding of what fastidious means through details in the sentences like “reviews everything with a fine-tooth comb (examines everything carefully),” “spends hours every week (spends several hours each week),” and “meticulously plans (plans carefully).” ChatGPT's sentence-writing really is impressive!

3. Ask ChatGPT to explain a word's “Connotation”

▍Rationale: GRE fill-in-the-blank questions depend heavily on how well we understand a word's “positive or negative attitude” and its “implied meaning,” which is exactly the Connotation side of learning vocabulary. This is a very important part of acquiring vocabulary: it helps us tell apart subtle differences between similar words and use words more accurately.

▍Prompt: List 5 GRE words with their connotations explained in detail. (Partial screenshot below)

Did you notice that Fastidious has both positive and negative connotations? After reading this far, it'd be hard to forget fastidious, wouldn't it!

4. Ask ChatGPT to write “an essay on a topic you're interested in, using GRE words”

▍Rationale: Start from a topic you're interested in and see how GRE words can be used within it, to make GRE words feel closer to you. ChatGPT's essay structure is also quite good, something we can model ourselves on (not copy!).

▍Prompt: Write a short (or set a word count, e.g. 100-word) essay about __________ with at least 5 GRE words that are considered high frequency on the test.

Fill in the blank with a topic you're interested in. Here's Social Media as an example (partial screenshot):

The underlined words in the screenshot above are all commonly tested GRE words. When they come together in an essay on an everyday topic, don't GRE words seem a lot less scary?

The first essay ChatGPT writes may not include what we think of as GRE words. In that case, add this instruction: Rephrase the essay with more difficult words. Then ChatGPT won't hold back😏

5. Ask ChatGPT to “design a GRE vocabulary quiz”

▍Rationale: Assessment for Learning is a principle strongly emphasized in language testing. Once a test shows you where you're weak, you can adjust how you study.

▍Prompt: Write a one-blank sentence completion question to test me on GRE words. Randomly choose four words from below and use them as options: ___________. Don’t provide the answer until I tell you to.

I suggest using this prompt after you finish memorizing a wordlist, filling the blank with the words in that list so ChatGPT can quiz you on them at random. Here I'll use the first 10 words of Wordlist 1 from my book 《GRE 精選必背字彙》 as an example:

Once the question appears, type in your answer and ChatGPT will tell you whether you got it right (the answer to the question above is D. spurious). If you want an explanation, you can enter these prompts:

‧ Please explain why “__________ (the correct answer)” is the answer.

‧ Why can’t I choose “__________ (the wrong option you picked)”?

Conclusion

These 5 methods actually have some clever learning design built in. In methods 1 & 2, we feed words to ChatGPT; in methods 3 & 4, ChatGPT feeds words to us; and method 5 combines both (we supply the range of words, but ChatGPT decides which one is the answer).

When acquiring vocabulary, you really need both approaches. Sometimes we have to go after words actively, and sometimes we need to run into them by chance; that's how words have a chance to really stick. Now that you know the trick, open ChatGPT and try these 5 methods. They'll definitely help you remember words! Good luck on your test!

For more on English learning and study-abroad trends, follow my Instagram (@shuoleegre) and Dcard profile (李碩 GRE), and join my IG broadcast channel so you never miss test updates!

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