I originally wrote this review on the Barrons SAT Vocabulary Flash Cards, but it's really a review that I hope anyone looking to build their vocabulary might find useful, so I thought I'd copy it here. It covers the American Heritage books and other resources...
The Barrons flash cards fall far from what they could, or should, be. The good part is that they are flash cards. I prefer cards to books because they are easy to carry, easy to select the words you have mastered and set those aside to work on the others, and easy to randomize. The size is right and the paper weight is adequate to hold up until the cards have been learned.
But the main content is poor. The selection of words seems weak, but I can't be sure. You may discard a hundred right away, but then you'll still have 400. The syllabications and pronunciations are often non-standard. For example, Barrons breaks "articulate" as ahr TI kye let (The I should be marked short and the e's should be the upside-down e schwa symbol that indicates a minimally stressed vowel; capitalization indicates the stressed syllable.). The American Heritage Dictionary, which I consider to be the best, treats "articulate" as ar*tic'*u*late, ar-tik'-ye-lit, where the i's are marked short and the e is the schwa. This poor treatment goes on and on so much that it becomes annoying and unhelpful. So does the frequent use of the schwa; you end up mumbling the words instead of pronouncing them articulately. Barrons seems to use the pronunciation style and symbols of American Heritage Dictionary (called AHD), but not quite.
The definitions are where Barrons really falls short. The definitions are often too terse, sometimes just synonyms and not always good ones; different meanings are separated by semicolons, but sometimes different uses of words, as, say, noun and adjective, are not mentioned at all. Sometimes not all of a word's several meanings are given. The definitions are the sort that a high school student might memorize without really understanding how the word is best used, because they fail to convey nuance that true understanding of the word requires. The example sentences often seem as though inelegantly written by a high school student -- the word just stuck in some sentence with no enrichment of its meaning or usage. And the synonyms are weak. In one case I noticed, "rant" is given as a synonym of "tirade," but "tirade" is not given as a synonym of "rant" but "storm" is.
My recommendations for really learning new words include the "100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know," and "100 More ..." By American Heritage Dictionary. The words are well-chosen and include a few technical or scientific words. They give syllabications that seem more standard, followed by the AHD pronunciation guide, so you can really see how to pronounce the words correctly and overcome schwa uncertainty. Following that is a fuller description of the words' usage, such as "noun," or "transitive verb." If the plural is tricky, it is listed next. Then an elegant meaning or meanings, which are numbered if they are significantly different. Then the word is used in a sentence, often from a notable person. The etymology is often given, which I find makes words more memorable and their definitions more nuanced, so you can use them with confidence. And for most words, related words are listed along with their part of speech.
I also recommend Grammar Girl's "101 Words Every High School Graduate Needs to Know." Her definitions are really great; they are high on nuance and often blend in etymology, so you really understand the subtitles of a word's usage. Her word selection comes up with elegant words, but which are a little more down-to-earth. Her example sentences are often lengthy, from notables, and amusing. Fogarty really delivers a rich understanding of what each word means, and her writing, as always, is a pleasure to read. But there is no pronunciation or syllabication guide, and, surprisingly, all the words are capitalized.
The problem with these books is they aren't as well-suited to drill as are flash cards, and the words are permanently alphabetized. You could, I suppose, insert a piece of paper at random, and lower it to reveal the word but not its definition; that would sorta make the books into flash cards. For that amount of work you'd come away with a much better understanding of the words you should have mastered before entering college.
There are other ways to learn new words on line, for free. FreeRice and SparkNotes prompt SAT words with multiple choice synonyms and vocabulary dot com has many lists, including AHD's high school 100, as does esldesk. Vocabulary dot com will track your progress and learn what words you know and should know. Quizlet has lots of virtual flash cards, though the definitions are unvetted. You can even find AHD's several lists of words on the Houghton Mifflin web site and then look them up in their online dictionary. But nothing beats a fistful of the real thing. Houghton Mifflin, are you listening? Turn your American Heritage books into flash cards -- please!
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