GRE Vocabulary Flashcards Features

This online tool was created to aid in learning some of the most common words found on the GRE. You are welcome to use the public version, but you'll find that the customizable features included will help you get the most out of these vocabulary flashcards.

Basic features

When you have your own account, you have the ability to customize any attribute of a word in the database, except for the word itself. The public version has basic definitions, parts of speech, synonyms, and antonyms to test your knowledge of the words, but you may wish to add or edit your own definitions, synonyms, and antonyms.

Extended features

Here's where the real fun begins. With your own account, more word attributes are made available to you, including:

• Example sentence - A usage example of the word used in a sentence or phrase. One of the best ways to learn the meaning of a word is to formulate a sentence of your own using that word. You can make these as goofy or inappropriate as you wish, as long as it helps you remember the word.
• Mnemonics - A mnemonic is like the example sentence attribute, but it may more take the form of notes rather than full sentences. For example, you may want to remember that 'virulent' means 'harmful or poisonous' because it looks like 'virus'; thus, your mnemonic would be 'virulent virus'. You may also know the roots of words from Latin, Spanish, Greek or another language you know. Again, you can be as creative as you wish with these—whatever it takes to remember the word!
• Connotations - A word can have a positive, negative or neutral connotation. As you are going through your flashcards, you can mark it as positive (+) or negative (-). Connotations can be very helpful while learning vocabulary because even if you can't remember the definition, you will remember the 'sense' of the word which can really help you eliminate answer choices on the GRE. As you go through the flashcards, they will be tinted green (+) or red (-) based on the connotation you have given it. The idea is that seeing the word in conjunction with a positive or negative color will help you remember its connotation.
• Stars - When you first open an account, all words are starred by default, assuming that you know none of them. As you learn the words, you can 'unstar' them so that as you go through your flashcards, you are given the option to only look at starred words, enabling you to skip the words that you are already comfortable with.

Hints

With all these added goodies, you are also given the option of testing yourself with 'hints.' Instead of just one 'show definition' button as in the public version, you are given separate buttons for all attributes including connotation, mnemonics, example sentences. Let's say you just want to peek at a word's connotation without seeing the full definition. You can just click the 'connotation' button and the flashcard will become tinted green or red. Or it will be like a spelling bee, when you can ask, "Can I hear that in a sentence?" Hopefully these hints will set you on the right track, and will trigger your memory for the correct definition!

Screenshots

In the screenshot below, you can see an example flashcard with all these bells and whistles in all their glory. Notice the connotation buttons (-,o,+) in the top right corner, the separate 'hint' buttons, and the editable fields, such as the mnemonic.

And in the following screenshots, you can see the tinted flashcards for negative, neutral and positive words:

        

Vocabulary database

The last added feature of a personalized account is the vocabulary database. The entire word list is made available to you on one page, and you can edit all word attributes on this page as well as within the flashcards. This is handy if you want to make a bunch of changes to multiple words at once, or if you don't want to sift through all the flashcards to find a particular word.

Portability

I designed the flashcards so that they will fit nicely on an iPhone (or Blackberry or other portable internet-ing device) screen. Try it, and you can bring your flashcards with you everywhere! While you're waiting for the bus, lounging on the couch during commercials, killing time between classes, sitting on the toilet...wherever, I won't ask.

Pricelessness

It's totally free, so you have no excuses. What are you waiting for? The GRE is looming!

In Development

Even though my own GRE nightmare is over, I will continue to work to improve these flashcards for those who need them. Some features currently in development are:

• More extensive word lists;
• Ability to upload your own word lists;
• Cross-linking of words that are synonyms/antonyms of each other;
• More quiz types, such as sentence completion and antonyms;
• And finally, though this is a long shot, maybe someday these flashcards will turn into an iPhone app!

Contact

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions for new and improved features, please do not hesitate to contact me by leaving me a comment on my blog post about this application.