2008 Graduate Entrance Exam English Vocabulary Must-Know

Author: Ma Degao
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2007-02-01
Features: This book is divided into six major sections:
1. Familiar Words with Unfamiliar Meanings
Many students often encounter situations where they recognize all the words in a sentence but still fail to understand the meaning. One reason is the lack of comprehensive understanding of the multiple meanings of words, turning familiar words into unfamiliar ones and thus affecting reading speed and quality. In recent years' postgraduate entrance examination papers, the setters have significantly increased the focus on this aspect, causing many students to struggle. Particularly in reading and translation sections, a misunderstanding of a single word's meaning can lead to significant score loss. Given this, we have dedicated considerable time and effort to selecting all the "familiar words with unfamiliar meanings" from the syllabus for students to study, helping them overcome the pitfalls of familiar words.
2. Gap Words
The compilers of this book have shown great ingenuity by comparing the syllabi of the CET-4 and CET-6 with the postgraduate entrance examination syllabus, specifically identifying the "gap words" that appear in the postgraduate syllabus but not in the CET-4 and CET-6. The principle of learning vocabulary is to start with the unfamiliar. Students should target this section of words for focused memorization, using the CET-4 and CET-6 as stepping stones to reach the summit of postgraduate-level English!
3. Core Vocabulary
According to surveys by English and American vocabulary scholars, the most commonly used vocabulary (core vocabulary) in daily life in English-speaking countries is only around 2,500 words. The compilers of this book have used advanced computer statistics technology to analyze all the vocabulary that has appeared in past postgraduate entrance examination papers, and have particularly referred to the latest authoritative statistical data from the Oxford Dictionary and the Longman Dictionary. They have selected and compiled the most frequently occurring words in past exam papers as well as the most frequently used words in daily life to form this section of postgraduate core vocabulary. The goal is to help students truly master the various usages of these words, improve practical application skills, and achieve fluency in listening, speaking, reading, writing, and translation.
4. Less Common Vocabulary
Reading comprehension has always been a crucial part of the postgraduate entrance examination papers, and this section of vocabulary is key to mastering it. Many students report that despite doing countless exercises and reading numerous articles, their scores remain stagnant. While techniques such as analyzing complex sentences, grasping the structure of passages, and analyzing questions can help overcome this challenge, all of this relies on a solid foundation of knowledge, and the foundation of reading is vocabulary.
5. Vocabulary Beyond the Syllabus
The syllabus requires that 3% of the words in each year's exam paper be beyond the syllabus. Based on past experience and an understanding of the trends in postgraduate entrance examination question setting, we have carefully selected the "vocabulary beyond the syllabus" in this book from the latest English and American periodicals and newspapers with themes similar to those of recent postgraduate entrance examination papers. This aims to ensure that the 3% of words beyond the syllabus in the postgraduate entrance examination papers fall within the scope of this section. By studying this part, students will not only master the syllabus vocabulary but also learn some words beyond the syllabus, truly outperforming others in terms of vocabulary. Familiarity with this section will not only help students read articles smoothly but also enable them to directly answer questions that purely test vocabulary meanings.
6. Categorized Reading Vocabulary
All the reading comprehension passages in past postgraduate entrance examination papers are derived from English and American corpora and are almost entirely documents with strong topical relevance. For many students, reading comprehension is the biggest hurdle. The best approach is to "enter the tiger's den to catch the tiger," meaning to memorize the frequently occurring unfamiliar, difficult, and new words in English and American periodicals and newspapers to achieve a basic mastery of the vocabulary commonly used in postgraduate reading comprehension. Moreover, mastering the vocabulary of English and American periodicals will also help with translation from English to Chinese questions, and an expanded vocabulary will benefit writing tasks.