Customer Reviews

500 Key Words for the SAT, and How to Remember Them Forever!

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The pneumonic devices in this book are a great way to learn new words, especially if you are reviewing for the SAT, PSAT or another standardized test. For example, the word "abstruse" means difficult to understand. There is a picture of two people, who the author calls the Abbs, who have just received a truce from a rival family. One of the Abbs is saying that he can't understand the truce. Whenever you hear the word in the future, you'll think of the Abbs and their truce and remember the definition! There, if you didn't already know that word, you just learned one! And one final comment... I took the PSAT this past fall and I had trouble with some of the harder vocabulary words. I was looking through the test for words I didn't know, and 3/4 if not more of the words I did not know for the test are in this book.

As a teacher I am always looking for books that will help my students actually remember words not just learn them for the test. I heard about this book at the National Middle School Association conference this year and tried it with my students. To my surprise, my students REMEMBERED the words thanks to the stories provided by this book. You see, this book takes all the work out of teaching students words. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to improve their vocabulary and keep these words in their long-term memory. My students will attest to this success.

I am an educator of 26 years. This book is a great resource for me as I teach my students higher level words that they need to know FOREVER!!! My students learn the word definitions for the test, but the pictures and stories help them learn them for life. As my students become proficient at relating the words with the stories and pictures, they begin to do the same thing for themselves when they come across words that are not included in this book. Every year I offer the opportunity for the students to order 500 SAT Words, and parents will not only order them for their students in my class, but also order copies for their college bound students as well. As a teacher, I have found this book to be a great resource. My entire campus uses this book as a "school-wide" vocabulary program. By the time our kids leave our campus, they KNOW these words and have a new tool for learning additional words. I can't say enough about how much this book has added to our campus program and to my classes.

I am an AVID teacher and am preparing my students for the SAT. After I started using this book my students now think that learning Vocab is fun! When have you ever heard a high school student say that vocab is fun? I highly recommend this book!

This is the book to have for students who want to improve their vocabulary. The words are listed with seemingly unrelated anecdotes or fictional stories, but once the students read through this "non-sense", they are amazed to find how many words they do remember after weeks of study. This is much better book than other books that just list words, definitions, and non-fun senteces. The vocabulary level, however, is lower than that of other SAT prep. materials. The best book for a beginning student of SAT.

The idea is defintly a new one but the book falls far short of expectations. The book does have some interesting images, but the stories that are told sometimes become too hard to remember and too tedious. At times it feels as though you are reading a dictionary, and sometimes the idea will click in your head. Overall 2 stars for this book is the most it really deserves.

I have been teaching school for 25 years. Six years ago, I discovered Mr. Gulotta's SAT book and began introducing the vocabulary words in my classes. I soon discovered that it isn't just the words in this book that helped to make my students successful, but it was also the learning of the "process for remembering definitions". After about 4 months of using this book as our guide, my students soon began to develop their own methods of remembering hard to remember definitions. It was wonderful to watch my students look at a word and see a story evolve from its meaning. This is a skill that will serve them well as they go on to develop as readers and writers. Now, my entire school uses this book (beginning in Kindergarten) and by the time these students reach me in 6th grade, they will have learned and re-learned the process of seeing a story in the definition of a word. The SAT is looming out there, so it is never too early to start preparing. A word a day keeps SAT worries away!! Thank you Mr. Gulotta!!!

This is a great book if you (like most people) find mnemonic devices very helpful and an effective way to learn (especially vocab). The focus is on mnemonic devices, which are sometimes silly, which actually increases your ability to remember them. Every word has a definition, device (including a story or a picture), warnings of confusion with or connections to other words. The book really understands how to teach vocabulary to maximize comprehension and recall.

I guess the best way to judge the use of a book like this is to see if there is a pay off. I am a reading teacher and have used this book with my students for many years. My students leave my class to go on to take the 7th grade Duke SAT with outstanding success. Teachers at the junior high and high school level are astounded by the vocabulary and definition retention level of my students. This book not only exposes the students to 500 great words, but it also gives the students a tool to use in learning other--hard to remember---definitions. For my students, this book becomes a "how to" book ---"how to" remember the meanings of words even when they are used in isolation--without context clues. The proof of the value of this book is in the results that my students have had with the Duke SAT, PSAT and the SAT. It's hard to argue with results.

Since no one else seemed to mention this in there review, I decided to put it in mine: DON'T BE FOOLED WITH FUNNY PICTURES SCAM. Granted there are some pictures, but with most of the words there is just a paragraph describing a picture. I found this to be very disappointing, and I warn anyone interested to purchase with caution