Magoosh GRE Blog

In a quirk of the English language, common people’s names have made it into some vocabulary words. Such names as vocabulary words is mostly coincidence, meaning that there was no pope named Gregory the something or other who loved being around other people (hence the word ‘gregarious). Nonetheless, we do not always perceive the associations [...]

A day late this week! Which puts us in a bit of pickle, so it’s called “Vocab Thursday”, just for today. A pickle is another way of saying an unpleasant and potentially embarrassing situation. We’ve all been in a pickle or a jam (though nobody has probably ever been in a jar of pickle jam). [...]

There is a fine line between boldness and rashness. What can be seen as a courageous or defiant act can quickly be seen as downright foolish. A mountaineer summiting Everest is courageous; a mountaineer summiting Everest with a storm quickly approaching is foolhardy. The Everest example embodies sheer physicality. Oftentimes courage—or foolishness—manifests in a social [...]

“To err is human” is a familiar saying, and applies to social situation. After all, everybody has blundered before his or her peers, whether by saying something inappropriate or behaving in an awkward manner. In honor of this tendency, I have five “awkward” GRE words for you to learn.   Gaffe Ever done or said [...]

The Official Guide to the GRE is not just a trove of GRE words it is a trove of GRE words for which the writers of the test have a penchant. Thus, I tell students that they should be familiar with every word in the book. Of course that’s quite a few words. The good [...]

Word of the Day is, as the name would imply, a daily feature on dictionary.com. Many of my students prepping for the GRE have asked if the words from this list are useful to know. Many of the words featured are very obscure (irrefrangible, gaumless) or describe something that would never show up as a [...]

Channel-surfing on television, while not without deserved mind-numbing connotations, offers up a range of different personalities. We have everything from the frenetic hawker of the home-shopping network (who sounds like he just double-fisted two Venti Starbucks drinks) to the droning talking heads of the cable news channel (who look like they could use a cup [...]

In polite conversation, seldom will a person stop his interlocutor and say, “Oh, by the way, you just used that word incorrectly.” Perhaps this phenomenon can account for the spread of solecisms, or the misuse of words. Unfortunately, many of us end up using such words incorrectly—which can become a big problem when prepping for [...]

When two words are brought together, they form compound words. Many compound words that we’ve learned are straightforward enough. A playground, for instance, is the ground on which children play. But not all compound words are that easy to figure out. Below are a few tough ones that may just show up test day.   [...]

There is no overarching theme this week, besides the fact that each word below is very likely to show up on the GRE. None of these words are easy GRE words – they are all quite difficult and most likely would not show up in the easiest vocabulary section. You could very well see them [...]