A great benefit of flashcard study is that you can “gamify” it to make it both more engaging and more effective. How many definitions can you remember in a row? In a minute? In five minutes? What if you turn the cards around and read the definitions first? Can you think of the word that goes with each definition? How many new words can you learn in a half-hour? There are all sorts of ways you can challenge yourself.

Remember, you’re going to be studying up to 1,000+ GRE vocab words over the course of your test prep, so you have to do what you can to keep the process interesting and maintain your motivation. Moreover, in order to make your study time productive and effective, you have to make sure that you remain an active participant in your learning, rather than someone passively ingesting an endless stream of information.

So, get creative with your flashcard study. Make it fun. Keep yourself on your toes by varying how you use your cards. Give your brain a jolt from time to time. The more you can keep yourself engaged and provide fresh challenges for yourself, the more GRE words you’ll ultimately learn.