{"id":2880,"date":"2016-02-16T14:43:53","date_gmt":"2016-02-16T22:43:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/?p=2880"},"modified":"2020-12-10T13:44:12","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T21:44:12","slug":"toefl-tuesday-the-worst-sources-for-toefl-vocabulary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/toefl-tuesday-the-worst-sources-for-toefl-vocabulary\/","title":{"rendered":"TOEFL Tuesday: The Worst Sources for TOEFL Vocabulary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Learning vocabulary is one of the most basic parts of studying English, so getting good vocabulary is massively important. But there are a range of different <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">types <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of vocabulary, depending on your needs. For the TOEFL specifically, academic vocabulary is helpful, as is common conversational vocabulary. There are many resources that are bad for building that type of vocabulary, but here I want to discuss the resources that students use because they <\/span><b>seem<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> helpful even if they are not. There\u2019s no point in saying that Shakespeare is bad for TOEFL vocabulary, because you already know that\u2014his writing is too old. I want to instead point out resources that people use and don\u2019t know are unhelpful for the TOEFL.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"TOEFL Tuesday: The WORST Sources for Vocabulary\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/y2_v8lXsfJs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h1><\/h1>\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">GRE or SAT word lists<\/span><\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you\u2019re studying for the GRE or you took the old SAT, then you have probably seen word lists for those tests. It might be tempting to use a GRE word list to prepare for the TOEFL. But keep in mind that the two tests have different audiences. The GRE is for native speakers. it tests knowledge of poetic and rare vocabulary that can show the test-taker\u2019s reading experience. On the other hand, the TOEFL is a test of English communication in academic situations. So a word like \u201ctrenchant\u201d might be helpful for the GRE, but it is useless for the TOEFL. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you are studying for the TOEFL, learning from a GRE word list is a waste of time. Most of the words are not relevant for the TOEFL, which has much less advanced vocabulary.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Free Word Lists<\/span><\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These have the same basic problem as the GRE word lists I mentioned above: they often include words that are too difficult for the TOEFL. Because people want to create long word lists, they simply add every rare English word they can find. The site toeflvocabulary.com is a good example. They may have good intentions, but the words in the list are not important for the TOEFL. You don\u2019t need to know what \u201cabash,\u201d \u201cabdicate,\u201d \u201cabet,\u201d or \u201cabrogate\u201d mean\u2014and that\u2019s just from the very beginning of the list!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are some good free TOEFL vocabulary resources (like <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/toefl.magoosh.com\/flashcards\/vocabulary\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Magoosh TOEFL\u2019s flashcards<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">!) but many free resources are unhelpful. Be careful about who you trust! <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Popular Movies and TV<\/span><\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I do recommend watching movies and TV in English for general listening improvement. It\u2019s especially helpful if you put on English subtitles so you can read while you listen. But if you focus too much on popular movies and TV, you may hear only casual, conversational English, and you won\u2019t get the academic vocabulary of the TOEFL. A word like \u201calbeit,\u201d for example, is helpful on the TOEFL, but you almost definitely won\u2019t hear in most Hollywood movies. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/toefl-tuesday-practice-listening-with-documentaries\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Try watching some documentaries instead!<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> That\u2019s a closer approximation of what you will hear in many TOEFL recordings.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Learning vocabulary is one of the most basic parts of studying English, so getting good vocabulary is massively important. But there are a range of different types of vocabulary, depending on your needs. For the TOEFL specifically, academic vocabulary is helpful, as is common conversational vocabulary. There are many resources that are bad for building [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13604],"tags":[13621],"ppma_author":[13628],"class_list":["post-2880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vocab","tag-video"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v21.7 (Yoast SEO v21.7) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>TOEFL Tuesday: The Worst Sources for TOEFL Vocabulary - Magoosh Blog \u2013 TOEFL\u00ae\ufe0f Test<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/toefl-tuesday-the-worst-sources-for-toefl-vocabulary\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"TOEFL Tuesday: The Worst Sources for TOEFL Vocabulary\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Learning vocabulary is one of the most basic parts of studying English, so getting good vocabulary is massively important. 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