Free Rice You’ve probably heard of freerice.com. It gained popularity a few years ago, and while it’s no longer the crazy fad it was, it’s not any less useful for vocabulary building. Here’s how it works: you answer a multiple-choice vocabulary question, and for each correct answer, ten grains of rice are donated to the […]

We haven’t done vocabulary in a while. Today, we’ll talk about the topic that everybody loves to hate: phrasal verbs. To be specific, we’ll be dealing with phrasal verbs involving the word “keep.” The trick with phrasal verbs is knowing the context in which they can be used, since many of them are only appropriate […]

Pedometer. Pediatrician. Pedal. Pedagogy. Pedestrian. What do all these words have in common? Unfortunately, the obvious answer isn’t quite correct. Although all these words contain “ped-,” they actually come from two different roots that, by an unhappy accident, are identical in most circumstances. The Latin “ped-” means “foot;” the Greek “ped-” means “child.” Depending on […]

This seems like a very simple question, but in fact it’s incredibly hard to answer. We don’t need to analyze the question too much to see the problem. Let’s just look at a small example to show why counting words isn’t very practical.   Counting Words Is Extremely Hard Take the word “place, ” for […]

After too/to and your/you’re, effect and affect are probably one of the most frequently misunderstood word pairs in common English, especially for all those out there studying for the TOEFL. In spite of this, the  difference between them is actually pretty simple: generally speaking, effect is a noun, and affect is a verb. If you […]

As you prepare for the TOEFL, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by a seemingly infinite pile of flashcards. Not only is this no fun, but it’s not the most effective way to learn. It’s way easier to learn something new if you can relate it to things you already know, so let’s apply this rule […]