Don't Believe the Hype: Vocabulary Still Matters on the SAT
The rationale behind our roadmap to the SAT.
While it's true that the new SAT will no longer directly assess students on their knowledge of "obscure" vocabulary via sentence completion questions, don't be fooled into thinking that students will encounter less vocabulary on the test. Words still matter, and a student's vocabulary knowledge will still remain a powerful predictor of his or her overall score on the new SAT Reading Test.
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Learn the Words Martin Luther King, Jr. Used to Change the World
Commemorate MLK Day with African-American history resources.
From vocabulary lists to lesson ideas, we've got a host of vocab-focused resources to make planning MLK Day and Black History Month easier to plan.
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Poll Numbers Aside, Democrats Court the English Teacher Vote
Candidates deserve an A+ for use of Poetry 101 speechifying technique.
The third debate among the Democratic candidates for President was held on December 19 in New Hampshire. Our VocabGrabber pulled out coalition, validation, and prioritize as the top three most relevant words used over the course of the evening. But it wasn't so much the words used so much as the Poetry 101 speechifying techniques that caught our attention — were Secretary of State Clinton, Senator Bernie Sanders, and Governor Martin O'Malley not-so-surreptitiously seeking the English teacher vote?
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The great news about today's young adult literature boom is that teens are not just reading, they are reading insatiably. Using Vocabulary.com, teachers can turn the reading students are already doing into academic gains.
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Standing in "Solidarity": How French Informs English Vocabulary
Like so many other words in the lexicon, we owe "solidarity" to French.
If you're standing in solidarity with France following last Friday's horrifying Paris attacks, it can help to remember that solidarity, which means "unity for a common purpose," is itself a French word. Solidarity showed up in English in 1829, following a long tradition of French-to-English language transfers that traces back to William the Conqueror and the 1066 Norman invasion.
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"Thrice for the United States of America"! GOP Debate or Renaissance Fair?
Vocab choices lend dramatic flair to otherwise technical discussion of policy.
The fourth Republican debate was, in terms of content, an exploration of the future of the United States economy. Linguistically, however, it was a bit of a throwback. Several of the candidates used words and phrases that can strike the modern ear as a bit antiquated.
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The Linguisticky Highs and Language Lows of Last Night's Debate
On "catastrophes," "crony capitalism," and those who would "demagogue what we say here tonight."
The Republican debate on CNBC was billed as a discussion of the financial issues facing the nation, but it turned into something much livelier than that description might suggest: a raucous two hours. Candidates interrupted each other and asked for rule clarifications, rebelling against and refusing to answer moderator questions — questions which were often greeted by a loud chorus of audience boos. Continuing our coverage of relevant words in the debate season, we've prepared a list of the top ten most relevant words heard last night; below are a few linguistic highs (and lows) from the contest.
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