Cat got your tongue? A good vocabulary will get you far in life. Word Smart narrows down the important words you need to know, using pertinent definitions, guidance on avoiding common usage mistakes, and follow-up quizzes to help you build a stronger vocabulary.
I studied this book until it was in tatters. Still know about 90 percent of the words in it. Much better pronunciation method than any dictionary I've used. The word lists in the back were my favorite. I removed them and taped them to my walls.
While not a good book to stand alone for learning vocabulary, it works well as a supplement to another vocabulary program. As we learned new words in another vocabulary book, we looked them up in Word Smart, reading the entries and the example sentences. Its strengths are the selection of words commonly used in educated discourse, the good working definitions of the words in their most common usage, and the accompanying entertaining sentences. The weaknesses are that the entries are alphabetical rather than topical, which doesn't help students form connections between words, and that each word is only used in one exercise, which is inadequate review. I recommend it as a frequently used reference for vocabulary but not as a book to read and work through from beginning to end.
This is a sweet book! Like it says on the back, "improving your vocabulary is important, but where do you start?" This book has 823 words to build your vocab in an effective and fun format. I was recently reading another book and nearly every word I came across in it that I needed clarification on was in Word Smart. Some of my friends and I had a way fun time learning and using new words from this book!
I am always in the midst of 'reading' this one, along with it's companion, Word Smart II. Vocabulary in itself is a beautiful word and seeing it should be a constant journey.
This book is very helpful to those who want to improve their vocabulary. The definitions were very easy to remember and less complicated than they can be in dictionaries.