Page 19 - English Vocabulary In Use upper intermediet and advance

6 Revising vocabulary

Here is an extract from a psychology book on the importance of revising in an active way.

Probably the commonest fault among students is failure to realise that learning is
essentially an active process. Too many students sit for hours passively reading and re-
reading notes and textbooks, without ever attempting actively to recall what they have
read. The fallacy of this method has been amply shown by experiments.
The same principles apply to more advanced forms of learning: for effective
memory, some form of active expression is essential. The student, therefore, should
read through the material he wants to master with close attention and should then
reproduce the main points aloud or produce a written summary ... An hour's
concentrated work of this kind is more effective than three hours' passive reading.
(From A Modern Introduction to Psychology. Rex and Margaret Knight)

Revising with this book

When you revise a unit, first read it through. Then look at anything you wrote in your
vocabulary notebook connected with the unit.
Then, and most importantly, try to do something different with the new words and
expressions in that unit in order to help fix them in your memory.
Here are some suggestions:
Highlight (or underline) any words and expressions that you had forgotten or were not
,
sure about.
Look at the unit and choose ten words and expressions that you particularly want or need
to learn. Write them down.
Look up any words that you selected in an English-English dictionary. Do these words
have any other uses or associations that might help you learn them? Looking up the verb,
wish, for example, might lead you to wishbone or wishful thinking. Write anything that
appeals to you in an appropriate phrase or sentence.
Perhaps the dictionary can also help you find some other words based on the same root.
Looking up the noun, employment, will lead you to the verb, employ, to the nouns,
employer and employee, and, perhaps, to the adjectives employable, unemployed and self-
employed.
Write down the words and expressions you wish to learn in phonetic script. Use a
dictionary to help you.
Write down the words and phrases from a unit in your notebook in a different way - put
them into a network or a table, perhaps.
The next day, ask yourself again: How much can I remember?
Test yourself. Cover part of a word or phrase. Can you remember the complete word or
phrase?
When you have done all the steps above that you feel will be useful to you, close your book
and notebook and remind yourself of what you have been studying. How much can you
remember?

12 English Vocobulory in Use