Sidharth Balakrishna, Author, CAT expert and IIM Calcutta alumnus will explain how to build your vocabulary and learn words from the root of it.

You have already known the importance of vocabulary in the Verbal Ability section of CAT and other MBA entrance exams. In this article of Sidharth Balakrishna, Author, CAT expert and IIM Calcutta alumnus will explain how to build your vocabulary and learn words from the root of it. “In my opinion, in order to truly be good in Vocabulary (and also, not forget the meaning of a word just a few hours after you have learnt it), you cannot just mug up the meaning of words-after all, how many word-meanings can you just learn by rote? So what then is the best way? The best strategy is to understand the ‘roots’ or the origin of certain words,” Balakrishna derives.

Understanding the root of the word refers to the origin from which a word has been derived. According to Balakrishna, learning a word by knowing its root is the best way. “From what ‘main root’ has a particular word been derived? If you approach vocabulary in a systematic manner, you can rapidly improve on it,” he says.

Balakrishna explains the process of root based learning by giving an example. “Consider a word such as ‘demographics’. What does it mean? If you plan to mug up the meaning, it isn’t a good idea! Instead, look at its root: the root is ‘dem’ in this case. What does ‘dem’ mean?

This root, from Greek, means ‘people’. We all know that India is a democracy. So it should be easy to remember the root ‘dem’ and people (democracy means ‘a Government of and for the people’).

Now ‘demographics’ refers to a population study, or the study of the various characteristics of the people that comprise the population.

• A related word is ‘Demographist’ : it refers to a person who studies demography
• Let’s take another word with the root ‘dem’: ‘demagogue’. You may have heard it a few times-what does it mean? It has the same root, so it must refer to people. You can check it out in any dictionary.
• Similarly, consider the word ‘demogenics’. It means ‘relating to a society based on citizenship’
• Have a look at these two words: ‘Demophile’ and ‘Demophobe’. While the former means ‘A friend of the people’, the latter refers to a person who has an aversion to people (the root ‘philo’ means to have an affinity for/ to love, while the root ‘phobe’ has the opposite meaning).

Hence you can see that knowing the meaning of the root of a particular word helps a lot-not only in understanding the meaning of that particular word, but also the meaning of words with the same root. If you now come across any word with the root ‘dem’, you shall know it has something to do with people,” Balakrishna explains.

In similar way, you can learn the meanings of other words by following their roots.