Okay, so I have decided to start this initiative where I ask every single one of my GRE students who take the GRE test to tell me the words they remember seeing on the test. In my experience, every GRE test taker in Pakistan remembers 7-12 words on average and that makes a decent database each month (given that 30-40 of my students take the GRE exam every month). Then I chose the top 10 common words and post them here.
Knowing these 10 frequent words will by no means help you ace the exam but it will definitely give you something to relate to the difficulty level of the test in terms of vocabulary.
Gambit
Meaning: A gambit is a move or action (generally in chess) in which you risk something initially in the hope of future gain.
Mnemonic: Gambit sounds like “gamble”, and indeed there is an element of risk involved in gambling.
Usage: It is a gambit to skip all hard questions on the GRE exam and do the easier ones first in order to save time – on a harder section nearly all questions are hard and you may end up skipping all questions and wasting more time consequently.
Umbrage
Meaning: offense or annoyance
Mnemonic: Notice the last 4 Letter RAGE which means anger.
Usage: Ali took umbrage at the prank that his friends played on him.
Dander
Meaning: a feeling of anger and animosity
Mnemonic: Just think of Dandruff 😛
Usage: Don’t get your dander up if you get a low GRE score.
Exonerate
Meaning: release someone from a blame
Mnemonic: Ex(old) + Honor means to get back your old/lost honour
Usage: The job of a lawyer is to exonerate his clients and keep them out of jail and away from punishment.
Recuse
Meaning: excuse oneself from a case because of a possible partiality
Mnemonic: Recuse sound like excuse. So recuse is to excuse oneself
Usage: Because the judge and the lawyer had been classmates, the judge was asked to recuse herself at the start of the trial.
Tempestuous
Meaning: characterized by strong and turbulent or conflicting emotion, heated, stormy
Mnemonic: TEMPESTUOUS can be split as TEMP + PEST + OUS. So you will lose your TEMPER if someone PESTS you.
Usage: Lacking the tempestuousness of Ahmed, Ali in his debates was always calm.
Subterfuge
Meaning: deceit used in order to achieve one’s goal, dishonesty, guile
Mnemonic: Couldn’t think of a really good one for this but the closest I could get is SUB TERA kasoor 😛 which of course is a lie – thora kasoor apna bhe hota hai.
Usage: Any subterfuge on the GRE exam would be immediately apparent, much to the embarrassment of the student concerned.
Deference
Meaning: humble submission and respect
Mnemonic: There is a DIFFERENCE between us and rich people, that is why we respect them.
Usage: The students nodded in deference as the teacher approached.
Goad
Meaning: provoke to stimulate some action or reaction.
Mnemonic: Sounds like God – everyday we pray to god and urge.
Usage: Media has been used to goad people of like minds into believing their false agenda
Contrite
Meaning: feeling remorse or affected by guilt
Mnemonic: COUNT THE CASH RIGHT, ELSE YOU WILL REGRET IT.
Usage: The ETS was noticeably contrite and apologized to the GRE test taker for the countless technical difficulties and no air conditioning.