An Extremely Effective Vocabulary Builder
Written: Sep 28 '08 (Updated Sep 28 '08)
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Pros: Thorough, wide-ranging and effective
Cons: None. This is a very good book
The Bottom Line: Word Power Made Easy is an effective and easy to use vocabulary building for students and adults who want to expand their knowledge and have a college-level vocabulary.
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| buffoonery's Full Review: Norman Lewis - Word Power Made Easy: The Complete ... |
Norman Lewis is a well-known English grammar and vocabulary writer whose book Word Power Made Easy belongs on the desk of every motivated high school student who wants to attend a decent college and every adult who feels he or she could use some additional work on vocabulary. It's one of the best vocab building books on the market.
The book is divided into nineteen chapters. The first chapter is a series of vocabulary tests to get you started and the second a short list of suggestions on how to build your vocabulary. The guts of the book are in the next fourteen chapters, which focus on vocabulary building.
Each chapter is designed around a specific "How To" topic and is divided into three or four vocabulary building sessions so you won't have to absorb all of this stuff at one sitting. For example, chapter three is entitled "How to Talk about Personality Types" and is divided into three sessions. Session One covers ten words like egoist, egotist, altruist, introvert and extrovert. It provides pronunciation guidelines and several tests. Session Two introduces similar words, provides some etymological background and more tests. The third sessions introduces more personality and behavioral types e.g. monogamist, bigamist, polyandrist, philanthropist plus some adjectives, e.g. gauche, adroit, and the usual allotment of tests.
The topics of the other fifteen chapters include doctors, professions, science, liars, human actions, speech habits, insults, compliments, phenomena, activities, and personal characteristics. The last three chapters are comprehensive tests and answers and hints at continued vocabulary building.
Also included are occasional short vignettes on grammar, modern usage (e.g., farther, further, or who cares?), spelling hints, and whatnot.
The book is clearly written and should be comprehensible to a reasonably intelligent high schooler or motivated adult. It shouldn't take more than half an hour or forty-five minutes to get through each session, including studying and taking the test. I wouldn't work any faster than a chapter a week and would review on a regular basis. Give yourself four months to work through the five-hundred some pages.
I read a lot of vocab builders in my youth and picked this up for my high school-aged children. The book does what it is intended to do, and does it well. The conscientious student is going to learn a thousand-plus words over the course of a few months, and will be the better for it.
Highly recommended.
Recommended:
Yes
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