Contents Getting Started With Ultimate Vocabulary ................................................................................................... 2 What’s New in 2012? .................................................................................................................................... 2 Why Improve Your Vocabulary ..................................................................................................................... 3 How to Use Ultimate Vocabulary.................................................................................................................. 3 About This Guide........................................................................................................................................... 3 How to Choose a Built-In List .................................................................................................................... 4 Passive Verses Active Vocabulary ............................................................................................................. 5 Making Your Own Word Lists.................................................................................................................... 5 Studying Your Words with Word Discover TM ............................................................................................... 6 The Importance of Word Discover ............................................................................................................ 6 Word Discover Resources ......................................................................................................................... 6 Word Discover for Language Translation.................................................................................................. 8 Deep Processing ........................................................................................................................................ 8 Listening to Words .................................................................................................................................... 9 Using Word Messenger TM ............................................................................................................................ 9 Completing Activities and Quizzes .............................................................................................................. 10 Activities .................................................................................................................................................. 10 Quizzing Yourself..................................................................................................................................... 10 Setting Words to Mastered and Tracking Your Progress ............................................................................ 11 How to Set a Word to Mastered ............................................................................................................. 11 Tracking your Progress ............................................................................................................................ 12 Printing and Sharing Your Word Lists ..................................................................................................... 13 Use Ultimate Vocabulary Every Day ....................................................................................................... 15
Getting Started With Ultimate Vocabulary Congratulations on your decision to improve your vocabulary with Ultimate Vocabulary, the software that gives you more vocabulary words, more information on vocabulary words, and more interactive ways to learn than any other program. You have made a wise investment in your future; one that will begin paying off almost immediately. Just ten minutes a day is all it takes to start seeing – and hearing – results. Ultimate Vocabulary is a powerful yet easy-to-use vocabulary building tool that’s fun for everyone. We know you’re anxious to get started, and that’s why we’ve created this handy Quick Start guide. In it you’ll find everything you need to start putting the power of Ultimate Vocabulary to work for you. This guide presents an overview of Ultimate Vocabulary’s main features and functionality. You’ll find step-by-step information and instruction within the pages of our Ultimate Vocabulary Help Manual. We also encourage you to watch our brand new video training series where you’ll find more information on Ultimate Vocabulary plus several proven vocabulary-building techniques. Should you need further assistance while you navigate Ultimate Vocabulary, we encourage you to contact our technical support team.
What’s New in 2012? Your positive feedback has led to even more improvements to Ultimate Vocabulary 2012. If you’re upgrading from the 2009 version, here are some of the new features and improvements you’ll find in our most comprehensive version ever.
New redesigned modern interface – Ultimate Vocabulary has a redesigned modern interface that’s intuitive and easy to use. The menus have been reorganized for easier access to all of the vocabulary learning tools. Choosing word lists, editing users, adding new word meanings, and so much more are just a few clicks away. Plus, everything you need to know about the words you’re studying is all conveniently contained in Word View.
More activities, games and quizzes – You asked, and we gave. Ultimate Vocabulary now has 18 activities, games and quizzes, all designed to help you have fun while mastering your vocabulary words. In this version you’ll find flash cards, hang man, word search, scrambler, drag ‘n drop, word-synonym-definition-contextual recall, and more.
Better printing – Ultimate Vocabulary now lets you print out word lists, flash cards and work sheets so you can practice your vocabulary any time and any place you want.
Editing and adding words to dictionary – Ultimate Vocabulary now offers a handy “Quick Add” feature that lets you build custom word lists in seconds. In addition, this new version gives you complete control over adding, editing and deleting synonyms, antonyms, and word meanings to truly customize your learning.
Better progress tracking – Ultimate Vocabulary now includes nine different ways to track your progress. Ultimate Vocabulary keeps track of the words you’ve mastered plus your test times and scores. The software uses all of this information to calculate your progress. Then it graphs your progress so you stay motivated.
Better support for multiple users – Ultimate Vocabulary is multi-user and better able to keep track of each user’s word lists, mastered words, resources, test scores and progress charts. Adding and editing user information is simple, too.
Video training – Because some of you learn better by watching, we’ve added over three hours of professional video training. Our Step-By-Step Success series of video instruction covers everything from why you should improve your vocabulary, to understanding elaboration and depth of processing, using visual imagery, and other tips for getting the most out of Ultimate Vocabulary.
Why Improve Your Vocabulary Countless studies show that vocabulary is a strong indicator of career and life success. An excellent vocabulary is also a must for success in most academic disciplines. A powerful vocabulary will dramatically improve your “verbal image,” allowing you to command instant respect and credibility. Using Ultimate Vocabulary just 10 – 15 minutes a day is one of the best investments you can make in yourself. As you start improving your vocabulary, you’ll notice that people will listen to your ideas, pay more attention when you speak, and assume that you are more intelligent.
How to Use Ultimate Vocabulary About This Guide This is a Getting Started guide. The aim is to give you a quick overview of the features and functionality available in Ultimate Vocabulary. This document will get you up and running so you can start building your vocabulary immediately. For detailed information on any feature mentioned in this document, please consult Ultimate Vocabulary’s help manual. If desired, you can print this guide.
Video Training We strongly recommend that you watch the Step-By-Step Success video series before using Ultimate Vocabulary. Doing so helps you get the most out of your investment and quickly puts you on the path to your desired result. The videos are separated into six main categories including Getting Started and Boosting Word Memory. Double-click the main categories to view and choose your video learning options. All together there are over three hours of professional instruction that you can watch and listen to at your convenience.
Choosing Words to Learn Ultimate Vocabulary was designed to be used by people with a wide range of vocabulary levels. Therefore, an important first step is choosing a list of words to learn. Ultimate Vocabulary offers two word list options. You can learn words from the predesigned word lists included in the software. Or you can make your own word lists to learn the exact words you need to know. All of the built-in predefined word lists and all of the lists you make are accessible by selecting the Change Current Word List option on the Vocabulary Words menu.
How to Choose a Built-In List If you are an adult wanting to improve your communication and comprehension skills, we recommend starting with one of the lists under the “Words for Life Success” section. If you are studying for a standardized exam, we recommend you choose either the “GRE”, “SAT”, or “TOEFL” lists, depending on which exam you are studying for. If you are in grades 1 – 10 you will notice that there are lists especially for you. Finally, the “most common English words” and “English conversation” lists are ideal for English as a Second Language students or anyone who wants a deeper understanding of everyday words.
Passive Verses Active Vocabulary When learning vocabulary, it’s important to recognize the difference between active and passive vocabulary. Your active vocabulary is the set of words that you can confidently use in speech and in writing. Your passive vocabulary is comprised of words that you can simply recognize. Just because you think you know the meaning of a word doesn’t mean you shouldn’t study it. You need to ask yourself:
Have I mastered the word?
Would I be confident using the word in a conversation or email?
If the answer to either of these two questions is no, you will definitely benefit from studying the word, at least a little bit. When it comes to your vocabulary, it is much better to master a few words than it is to half-learn a hundred. We recommend you watch the Passive versus Active Vocabulary video included in the Step-By-Step Success series for more information on the difference.
Making Your Own Word Lists One of the outstanding features of Ultimate Vocabulary is that you can use it to learn any word in the included 160,000+ word database. That’s where you’ll find most of the words you want to learn. Adding words to custom word lists is quick and easy. Choose Vocabulary Words from the Ultimate Vocabulary main menu, and then select Instant Dictionary. Next, type the desired word into the white box, and left-click on it in the drop down box. Select the Add to List option on the Vocabulary Words menu, and then select from the drop down box the name of the list to which you want to add the word. You can also choose Create New, assign a list name, and click OK to create a new custom list.
While adding words from the Instant Dictionary, Ultimate Vocabulary will notify you if the word you want isn’t included in its database, and ask if you want to add it. If you do, simply follow the prompts to add the word along with its meaning(s), synonyms, antonyms, parts of speech, and more. Some of the reasons you might want to create a custom word list include:
Keeping track of unfamiliar words as you encounter them; this is a great way to study because the words you learn will be personally relevant.
Learning a specific vocabulary for a profession or course of study.
Keeping track of common crossword words.
Studying Your Words with Word Discover TM The Importance of Word Discover Memory and understanding of words is greatly enhanced by “depth of processing” and “elaboration”. Put simply, this means that the more information you know about a word, the better you will understand it, and the greater the chance you will remember it. You’ll find an in-depth explanation of these terms in the Vocabulary Building Simplified section of the Step-By-Step Success video series. Right now, here’s an overview: Simply reading the definition of a word in a dictionary rarely gives you enough “depth of processing” to remember the word for more than a few days. Having two to four usage examples (as most other vocabulary programs do) will help, but even this is still nowhere near what you need to fully assimilate a new word. Word Discover solves this problem by sourcing a huge amount of information about your words and bringing it together in one convenient study location. Now when you study your word lists, you can access 50 usage examples, etymology, encyclopedia entries, visual representations, images, and much more. With Ultimate Vocabulary your learning can be as deep or shallow as you like. If you want fast revision, you can read a quick definition and example. If you want deep learning then you have access to an almost unlimited amount of information about your words. Further, you can easily configure Word Discover to automatically download information about your words from thousands of online resources. You can use Word Discover to translate your words into virtually any language, search online journals and newspapers, and much more.
Word Discover Resources In Word Discover, a resource is a website or online database that Ultimate Vocabulary uses to gather information about your words. Ultimate Vocabulary is smart enough to automatically access such websites, look up words in your list, and display that information in a single convenient location. Ultimate Vocabulary comes with a number of pre-configured resources. We maintain these resources to ensure they stay online and current. In addition, you can also configure your own resources. To add your
own resources, choose “Word Discover” from the “Settings” menu and then follow the prompts. You can also edit and delete resources from this screen. Please refer to the help manual for details on adding, editing and deleting resources.
Although you can configure Word Discover to access an almost limitless amount of information, we recommend starting with the pre-configured resources. These include:
Ultimate Vocabulary’s Instant Local Dictionary – uses the 160,000+ word built-in dictionary/database. Note this information is stored inside Ultimate Vocabulary and you don’t need internet access to use this resource.
Word Explorer – allows you to visually explore words and their definitions.
Wikipedia – provides information about your words, sourced from Wikipedia.com.
Wikitionary – provides additional definitions from the free open dictionary.
50 Power Examples – provides usage examples from high-quality texts.
Google Images – for adding associated images to words.
http://www.mandarintools.com/worddict.html; a Chinese to English translator.
Word Discover for Language Translation A popular use for Word Discover is to translate words into another language. This is possible because Word Discover can automatically gather information from your chosen online bilingual dictionary. To enable this feature, you need to configure a custom Word Discover resource with your chosen bilingual dictionary. For instructions on how to do this, consult the Word Discover section in the Ultimate Vocabulary help manual.
Deep Processing For optimal results with Word Discover, it is essential that you read as much information about your chosen words as possible. We recommend taking these steps: 1) Browse your list of words by clicking on words one at a time. You can also use the up and down arrows to navigate through your list. As you do this, read the definitions provided by the “Ultimate Vocabulary’s Local Database” tab. Do this for your entire list. 2) Click on the “50 Power Examples” tab and repeat the same process. As you click on each word, try to read at least 10 usage examples before moving on to the next word. Usage examples appear at a wide range of reading levels. Focus on the ones you are most comfortable with. Note that this information is sourced from the Internet and may take a few seconds to load. 3) Next, click on the “Word Explorer” tab. Here you can explore your words visually and notice how related words such as synonyms are connected to each other.
4) Next, read Etymology and Encyclopedia entries for each word. Note that Wikipedia is most useful for words that have an extended meaning such as “Anthropology”. You can skip the words that don’t have entries. 5) Assign images to your words. This is vital for visual learners. Some words lend themselves to images more than others. Words that correspond to concrete or “real” objects such as “apple” are highly suited to images. Words that correspond to abstract concepts such as “justice” are less suited to images. However, images can even help with abstract words. For example, you could associate a picture of a judge with the word justice.
Listening to Words Hearing audio pronunciations is helpful for learning how to pronounce words. Ultimate Vocabulary uses a special audio database for pronunciations that contains 25,000 audio pronunciations. To listen to a pronunciation, select the word, and then click the “Hear Word” option on the Vocabulary Words menu. If you would like the pronunciation played automatically each time you select a word, choose the “Auto Play” option, also located on the Vocabulary Words menu. You can also right-click on the word and choose “Hear Word” from the drop down box.
Using Word Messenger TM An important feature of Ultimate Vocabulary is “Word Messenger”. A well-known and fundamental aspect of vocabulary building is repetition. That is, if you are not repeatedly exposed to a word, your memory will assume it’s no longer relevant and will consequently forget it.
Explained another way, if you are reminded of a word a few times after you learn it, you will be far more likely to remember it permanently. Word Messenger dramatically increases your chance of remembering words permanently because it subtly reminds you of words in the background as you do other things. When Word Messenger reminds you of a word that you have previously studied, all you need to do is quickly read the word and the definition. This simple act will dramatically strengthen the neural connections that you previously created when you studied the word. To enable Word Messenger for your current word list, select File from the Ultimate Vocabulary main menu. Click on Word Messenger to enable. Repeat these steps to toggle Word Messenger on and off. Once enabled Word Messenger will periodically remind you of words from your current list while you work. To change the interval, choose the Word Messenger option on the Settings menu, and click on the down arrow to open a drop down box of timing options. For more information, please refer to the help manual.
Completing Activities and Quizzes After you have studied your list in Word Discover, it’s time to have fun with some activities and quizzes. As with other Ultimate Vocabulary features, the activities and quizzes are designed to further deepen your processing and memory of words.
Activities Ultimate Vocabulary’s activities make learning vocabulary fun. All of the activities are accessible via the vertical side menu on the left side of your screen, under the Build Your Vocabulary drop down menu. There you’ll find old favorites and new including Flash Cards, Word Tag, Scrambler, Hangman, Drag n Drop, Definition Mix, Crosswords, and more. If you don’t see the side menu, it’s hidden. Unhide it by choosing the Show Side Menu option on the File menu. While you play with these activities, Ultimate Vocabulary is hard at work keeping track of your scores, your timing, and the number of non-mastered words you’re working with. You’ll find more information on how to play each of these activities in the help manual.
Quizzing Yourself Quizzing is another essential step in vocabulary learning. Quizzing performs two functions. First it allows you to track your progress. Second, completing quizzes helps you learn words and remember them longer. That’s because during a quiz, you are practicing the recall of your list. That helps build your confidence with the words in your list and makes you better at recalling them when you need them in everyday situations. Ultimate Vocabulary includes several quizzes. The definition and word quizzes assess your ability to match words to their definitions. The synonym and antonym quizzes assess your ability to match words to their synonyms and antonyms respectively. There’s also a quiz that tests your contextual recall ability. And of course, the spelling test is a test of your ability to correctly spell the words you’re currently learning without any reminders.
We recommend starting with the word and definition quizzes as these are the easiest. These are accessible via the Quiz Yourself menu option. From there you can move on to the Advanced Quizzes.
Setting Words to Mastered and Tracking Your Progress Ultimate Vocabulary has the ability to keep track of which words in your list you have mastered. Generally, you should continue working with the same word list until you have set all of the words in that list to mastered.
How to Set a Word to Mastered When you feel satisfied with how well you know a word, simply right click on the word to open a drop down box of options, and then left-click on Mastered. After you set a word to mastered, a check mark will appear beside the word to remind you that you no longer need to study this word. Should you need to, you can resume study on any word set to Mastered by simply repeating the above step to reverse the action and revert the word to non-mastered. From this drop down box, you can also rearrange the order of a word list. By default, words are listed alphabetically. Alternatively, you can choose the Sort List option to resort the word list so that all of the Mastered words appear at the bottom of the current list.
Since you already know and are comfortable using these words, Mastered words are not included in any of the activities and quizzes. Ultimate Vocabulary also uses the number of words you have mastered to calculate the Level Aptitude curve displayed in Learning Curve.
Tracking your Progress To help gauge your vocabulary building efforts and keep you motivated, Ultimate Vocabulary now offers several quiz-specific progress charts. Each progress chart is based on its respective quiz. There’s also a bar graph that tracks the time you have spent training, and a pie graph that tracks the time spent working on various Ultimate Vocabulary activities.
As you complete different quizzes, Ultimate Vocabulary maintains each score, tracks the number of words that were set to Mastered at the time of the quiz, and calculates Mastery, which is an adjusted score based on the number of words mastered and the quiz results. All progress tracking features are accessible and viewable at a glance via the Track Progress option on the Ultimate Vocabulary main menu. You’ll find more information about these charts and graphs in the help manual.
Printing and Sharing Your Word Lists Ultimate Vocabulary’s updated Printing Factory gives you more control over sorting and printing word lists so you can learn vocabulary even when you aren’t at your computer. The Printing Factory always uses the current list, includes an option to print mastered words and non-mastered words, and offers you a choice of printing word lists, flash cards, vocabulary worksheets, and spelling worksheets. The Printing Factory incorporates a standard user interface that lets you print, set up the page, select specific pages to print, zoom in, zoom out, fit printing to the page width, and fit printing on the whole page. Clicking on the desired functionality is all that’s required.
To print a word list, choose Print Worksheets from the side menu, and then choose Printing Factory. Click on the Mode drop down box to tell Ultimate Vocabulary what you want to print. Use the buttons above the print area to tailor your print out. Make sure your printer is properly configured and ready, and then print. That’s it!
Multi-user Support Ultimate Vocabulary offers support for multiple users and can now keep better track of each user’s custom word lists, mastered words, resources, test scores, and progress charts. The Settings menu is where you go to change the current user, add and edit user information, and delete user information.
Use Ultimate Vocabulary Every Day The final ingredient needed from you is action! Use Ultimate Vocabulary for 15 minutes every day and you will notice dramatic results. For further guidance and help, please contact
[email protected].
