Science Tutor Secrets: How to memorize science vocabulary

This week's science tutor video is all about how to memorize the Greek and Latin components of scientific words. There are a lot of reasons you should do this.

First of all, you will understand how different bodies of knowledge are put together. For example, you probably know that the structure of the periodic table gives a lot of information about different elements. If you don't know the name or properties of an element, you can still tell a lot about it if you know the element's position on the periodic table. In the same way, knowing just a few suffixes can tell you a lot about the properties of a chemical, as you'll see in the video:


Learning these Greek and Latin components can grow your science vocabulary exponentially. For each new root you memorize, you can instantly understand dozens of scientific vocabulary terms. As a science tutor, I always try to encourage this practice. You just get more bang for your buck.

The implications of this science tutor secret are profound. It may not seem like much, but it will help you make speedy progress in biology, chemistry, physics, earth science and all of your science learning... When you start "translating" new words based on their roots, you'll also be able to create new words of your own-words that other science tutors and members of the scientific community can easily understand.

Once you're able to create your own scientific terms, you'll essentially be a master of scientific language. You'll have a deep insight into the way scientists describe the world and organize their knowledge. This will deepen your understanding of science.

If this science tutor tip was useful for you, I suggest you subscribe to my weekly science tutor tips. (There's a link at the bottom of this post). In 2013 I'll be bringing on a lot of new content. Every week I'll post a new secret that will help you learn more, learn faster, and enhance your grades. I post some of these science tutor learning tips every now and then on this blog and on my YouTube channel. But for most of them, you have to subscribe to the newsletter.

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2 thoughts on “Science Tutor Secrets: How to memorize science vocabulary

    • Hi Kriss. Studying biology is NOT about memorizing a bunch of vocabulary words. (Except in high school when they make you take standardized tests…) But you have to know what certain things mean. That’s why I recommended learning the Greek and Latin roots of scientific terms. Doing this will help build an intuition about how scientific knowledge is organized and classified, and in the end you’ll be thinking more and memorizing less. That’s the value in it.

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