Good software or system for learning vocabulary from a list?

April 29, 2007 1:36 PM

Is there any good software/Firefox add-on/other system to drill myself in vocabulary for a standardized test?

There are a few threads about people who are looking to build their vocabularies, but my question is a little more specific. I'm studying for one of those lots-of-vocab-question-having standardized tests, and in the course of my studying, I've put together a a long list of words that I don't have down cold. I want to drill them into my head, but I find I don't learn them that well just reading them to myself, and I don't have an indentured servant who can follow me around quizzing me on the definition of 'scintilla' every 5 minutes.

I realized that an ideal solution would be something like a browser plugin or another piece of software that pops up words and definitions at random times or after every tenth page view or something like that. Are there any vocab cramming agents, that kind or otherwise, that you've had success with?

posted by EnormousTalkingOnion to Writing & Language (6 answers total)

I suppose it depends a lot on your learning style, but I can tell you what worked for me. Reading vocabulary words silently to myself didn't help but listening to myself read them did. I got a list of about 3000 words and definitions and read each word and its definition(s) into a hand held voice recorder. Then I listened to the tapes over and over and over again, walking to class, in my truck, in bed, etc. It's not a good method if you really need to cram because it takes time but it works if you're patient and good at memorizing things that you hear.
posted by inconsequentialist at 1:56 PM on April 29, 2007

jMemorize seems to be a nice system:

I used it briefly in the past, and liked it well enough.
posted by chrisamiller at 3:09 PM on April 29, 2007

Flashcard Exchange is the end-all in memorization for me and many other college students I know. As far as constant random interruptions while you browse the web - you may be a niche market there...
posted by phrontist at 3:51 PM on April 29, 2007

Hmm. I don't know of a random-interrupt based system like that, but if you're in the market for web sites, quizlet.com is pretty good (disclosure: i know the guy who made/runs it.)
posted by Firas at 4:12 PM on April 29, 2007

Supermemo.
posted by Zed_Lopez at 9:31 PM on April 29, 2007

If you've got Mac OS X, ProVoc rocks.
posted by bbrown at 9:41 PM on April 29, 2007