How important is vocabulary for the DSAT?

There are 3-4 Words in Context questions in each module of the DSAT. That means the total number of questions that directly pertains to vocabulary can range anywhere between 7-9 in both the modules combined. Considering that we have a total of 54 questions in both the modules, we are talking about 16-19% of the entire reading and writing section. This would easily translate into a score range of 100-150.

Answer: Vocabulary is super important for the DSAT.

Now when we know such a huge part of the reading and writing section is dependent on the vocabulary, how do we actually prepare for it? Do we start reading loads of books? or we start cramming words? or do we just keep on practising in the hope that it would workout on the test day?

Where we understand that vocabulary is very important for the DSAT, we also need to understand that that there is no fixed way to get around it. Let's look at all the different ways:

Reading Books: No doubt this is one of the best ways to improve your vocabulary, but when we are preparing for the DSAT, we normally don't have the time to read the amount of books that can actually improve our vocabulary. So very effective but we can't rely only on this.

Cramming from the word list: This method will obviously very painful in the fact that we will have no clue and context of the words that we are reading, and it would drain us completely. However, considering the lack of time and the need for an extensive vocab base, this can be a great supplement to reading on a daily basis. Learning 20-30 words daily can be great drill to get the exposure we need for the test and revising them on a daily basis and using flash cards can actually solidify those words in our heads so that we can confidently use them on the test.

Practising from the test: This is something we have to do. If we already are working on our vocabulary we can actually benefit from this. So this is always on the cards.

No matter what we do, there will always be some confusion so as to what can be done for vocabulary. We may learn 2000 words and not have a single word from it on the exam and we may learn 100 words and have 10 20 words from it on the test. Anything is possible but optimism is also needed. So my best advise is to keep working on the words through all the channels and pray that we have what we know on the test, so that we can leverage the most out of it.