Editorial Review
WORD SMARTThe words you use say a lot about you. Some words say that you are smart, persuasive, and informed. Others say that you don't know what you're talking about. Knowing which words to use and how to use them are keys to getting the most from your mind and to communicating effectively.
Based on the best-selling book, Word Smart on cassette will help you learn the words you absolutely need to know. To find these words, the Princeton Review researched the vocabularies of educated adults. It analyzed newspapers like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, books from best-sellers to the classics, and standardized tests like the SAT and GRE. The words included in this interactive program are those that appear most frequently and are often misused or misunderstood.
Here's what Word Smart includes:
words grouped by subject
concise, accurate definitions
lively, humorous examples and stories to illustrate meanings
mnemonics (memory devices)
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Customer Reviews
Great book, especially for ESL students 
2007-08-19
I have been learning English for 5 years and thought my vocabulary was more or less good, but...reading this book made me realize that my vocabulary is really poor. I am happy to have this book! I really liked the part where it explains the common usage errors, such as common and mutual, former and latter, fewer an less, that and which etc. I feel much more confident now when using these words. I have also never heard before the words EGREGIOUS, PAROCHIAL, REBUKE, STAGNATION and lots of other words, I am not sure I will use them some day, but at least I know these words now and it just feels good! :)
Good For Building an Educated Vocabulary 2006-12-14
I think there are two ways to inprove your vocabulary....or maybe three: 1) Read literature written with an "educated vocabulary" and either circle the new words or make a word list of the new words---books like those written by Charles Dickens "A Tale of Two Cities" or "David Copperfield" for example, or, 2) go through a dictionary from front to back 10 times for repetition---alittle hard for most of us to do, right?, or 3) Work through a work-book like this one that will teach you words selected by the author. I think this is a very good book for doing #3 above....use a word work-book. Two things are for sure, the ONLY way to learn new words and remember them is to put the words into your "long term memory". And, the only way for the average person to put words into their "long term memory" is through "REPETITION"---Going back again and again to your "word list" or to your circled words in the book to remind youself and test youself on the words and their meanings. This book will help identify the "new words" you need to learn and it will provide for "repetition" of those words so the words will go into your "long term memory". And....and....then you'll know some "edicated" words to use on your teachers so they'll think you're "smart"! :o) But, seriously, one way tests test for "smartness" is to give a vocabulary test. The theory is that "if a person knows alot of words they are smart". This may or may not be true but that's the way The SAT and other tests test for intelligence. Thus, this book is very worth your time and effort. Get a copy of the book, impress your teacher, and maybe you'll be admitted into a college someday so then you can become a teacher yourself who teaches these words to students. Or, you could become like Frank McCourt, a world famous author. One thing I am sure of though is that having an "educated vocabulary" WILL permit you to do things you would not be able to do without it. Any comments? boland7214@aol.c
Ridiculous -- little more than an... 
2006-11-11
...abridged dictionary with a couple of example sentences for each word...infinitely better books are available -- search for George Feinstein, D.J. Henry, Margaret Richek.
from a former SAT coach 2006-08-30
I used to work as a professional SAT Reading coach, making big bucks; the key issue for most of my students was vocabulary. Rather, VOCABULARY. (The other is slowing down and thinking as--not after--they read.)
Many questions on the SAT reading section amount to vocabulary questions.
What this means is that if you want to improve your SAT scores, if you are an ambitious student trying to get into one of the top schools, there is no two ways about it: you have to study vocabulary.
And study vocabulary.
And study vocabulary.
You cannot study simply one book, or even one series of books. You have to study several series.
However, the Princeton Review Word Smart series is the best that I know of. You should start here. Even if you think you have a good vocabulary, start here just to be on the safe side, and you can move on later.
You would recommend studying any of the vocabulary books that I've ever seen--but I recommend mastering the Word Smart series. These really are by far the best--if you are shopping here, it probably means you need these books.
If you were one of my students, your parents paying lots of money, I would force you to master these books, and I would ride you like a horse until you did. And then your scores would come up, your parents would love me and tell all their friends, and I would get more jobs and more money. That's how it works.
Anyway, these are certainly the best vocabulary books on the market. Even if you're studying vocabulary for some other reason, these are probably still the best.
Good luck!
Fastest way to Build your Vocabulary! 2006-08-26
Easy, fast, effective and fun way to improve your vocabulary. It will be a good investment!
Alphabetically sorted 
2006-06-25
WORD SMARTThe words you use say a lot about you. Some words say that you are smart, persuasive, and informed. Others say that you don't know what you're talking about. Knowing which words to use and how to use them are keys to getting the most from your mind and to communicating effectively.
Based on the best-selling book, Word Smart on cassette will help you learn the words you absolutely need to know. To find these words, the Princeton Review researched the vocabularies of educated adults. It analyzed newspapers like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, books from best-sellers to the classics, and standardized tests like the SAT and GRE. The words included in this interactive program are those that appear most frequently and are often misused or misunderstood.
Here's what Word Smart includes:
words grouped by subject
concise, accurate definitions
lively, humorous examples and stories to illustrate meanings
mnemonics (memory devices)
Wordy sensations! 2006-03-02
After reading this book, sundry longings have pervaded my English-teacher heart insofar as easy-to-understand vocabulary is concerned. I do not want to be taken wrongly, for I am not a man to be trifled with, and my students (I think) obey me to perfection. Singularly enough, my vocabulary control is often a trifle too exaggerated than too free. Also, I have found this is felt by many a teacher of such stamp. So, before my vocabulary spree gets on the wane, I must do something about it and decided to write these simple words before any deleterious compunctions arouse in my soul.
Not very rarely do I hear students complain about their meager progress in their studies of English. Wanting to reach good berths, they seem all too often demure and subservient persons, therefore they consider themselves abject nonentities, clinging (i.e. cringing) to a number of non-existing concepts their empirically based experiences might have led them to. It would be of great solace to them if they would relinquish the trifle promises of many a newfangled school that (not little) is advertised in feuilletons of Sundays' newspapers. Would any teacher, in infinite love for students, have any idea what would stand them in good stead? viz., what building blocks of language resources could and ought to be at their beck and call?
We've seen from our experience that many a student will expect us, teachers, to be a divine source of knowledge they've all craved. Only the parvenus are able, to a certain extent, to go around the world with a quondam tutor in waiting. Moreover, the irksome daily task of practicing at a very steady rhythm bewilders, vexes and discourages them fully. Thus, examples of frustrations and major thwartings have long been seen to gush forth like water from a fountain. Wherefore are they browbeaten by their vapid evinced unsuccesses?
Many times I feel like filling the gap there is there. Many will blame the hurry-scurry common to everybody in our lives. Any excuse not to invest time, money and/or/also effort. In my most sincere opinion, success comes through the willingness to work diligently however paltry one's constancy might be. Maybe one is afraid of being overexposed towards injudicious criticism. But then we come to the problem of factitious expression in everyday language, the goods thereof are none.
Why will many students carry on their classroom practices in jest? Not to mention homework practices? What could stem this mound of formidable drawbacks? With all forthcoming media could our students render good production, which eventually would call forth a sense of rapture? And could this rapt confidence obliterate former thwartings asunder? Or are their old platitudes still bolstered up unconsciously?
That there has to be a sifting in these areas no one doubts. But none is willing to fully take on the responsibility of eradicating one's listless guilt of slovenly practice. Slackened pace of study is usually not perceived by most teachers.
What bustles me up in the plaintive "Alack!" I hear from most students. I wish I could use a magic wand and turn their vocabulary skill into deftly unfettered command, since I believe the latter could be contrived by a wide vocabulary range. Yet, unobtrusively, we overlook its manifold merging aspects, whereupon a student behaves like a captive lass tied to the tail of a hussar's charger. Eventual sense of failure is their lot. Again, their hopes are fallen through and we feel like a sere and withered leaf: no feedback plausible, scanty joys of communicating in English.
For the sake of perspicuity in the students' rendering of vocabulary, I deem that vagaries undermine them into such a groove of triviality and actual sluggishness that it gives vent to the negative marketing of a school, to say the least: the notorious reputation bugbear. We should have a guild where a new philosophy of language mastery could be pointed out, studied and applied. Many a student and teacher, wont to the varnish of sham culture and all its excrescencies, fails to be sage. The guileless innocence imbued in many a student must be nipped in the bud, otherwise many will trippingly bawl out vocabulary inaccuracy. Alas.
Earnest students have got to be well guided, but not fooled or pestered with somber warnings. Many teachers usually comply with so-called frequent mistakes and hypocritically look askance if they happen to be warned about their students' vocabulary malfeasance.
One might mistakenly think my wonderings are of impervious purport, and that it is all too easy to say guileless words wherewith I get my point across: the last thing there is in my worry is sanctimoniousness. When the forlorn students' true eagerness to learn is deeply understood and their agogness beckons in the inaccuracy darkness, then, by dint of regret, will they make up the picture that will bring round to them.
I state that unflagging perseverance is the key to derive the authority whence all success can be gauged or measured. By such success we will see their (the students') mien be changed in face of all concoctions of frustrations.
Muddled vocabulary usage demands modification bedded in this wise. Without ominous postures, in so far as vocabulary mastery is concerned, can students pass muster and the barrenness of their lurking fears will not prevent them from achieving the curule chair of expedient vocabulary mastery. We should be bound to eschew any quivering fear of easy vocabulary command and do our best to ban all evils, proudly and firmly wielding students from whirl and whirlpool, out of the abyss of failure.
Finally, remembering to avoid getting carried away and thus writing a pizzazz spree gobbledygook, I have tried to voice my feelings here very briefly and concisely because my hectic daily schedule wouldn't possibly allow me enough time to give them the full development they really deserve.
Word Smart 3rd Edition 2006-03-01
Word Smart 3rd Edition doesn't take 823 of the most used words on the SAT and simply alphabetize them for your use. They begin with forty-one pages of introduction explaining why these words were chosen, how best to use this book, but more importantly they explain tried and true ways to increase your vocabulary.
Thesaurus and dictionary use, along with Word Smart's preferences in each, are discussed, all in an easy-to-read yet thorough manner. The words themselves are broken down into groups of from about ten to fourteen words. Each word includes pronunciation, parts of speach, definition(s), and is used in at least one sentence. There is a quick matching quiz at the end of each group of words to test your recall.
In addition to the above, knowing that these are some of the top words used not only on the SAT but also in everyday communications makes you feel you're getting your money's worth. I homeschool and while my son is using it mainly for SAT prep. I'm using it to enrich my reading, writing and understanding.
Quite good for improve vocabulary skill 2006-01-23
Since I'm Englsh major student, I'm specifically interested in studying and improving English vocabularies. The most thing I love about this book is that it's example sentences that are given for each word is fairly attractable. It means that even though I review frequently, I don't feel any sense of tediousness derived from fixed rote. Morover, the Quick quiz that are given for each few words are great method to confirm your process and outcome of vocabulary acuirement. It's good way to get acquainted with a lot of words.
Educated -- to say the least . . . 2005-10-16
In a word: Excellent. This book clarifies the meaning of words. So not only will you learn them, become aquainted with them, or use them -- you will properly use them. Wielding words in the proper context. It's a must have for people serious about using an "educated vocabulary". . . .
