Word Power Made Easy – Norma Lewis (the bible of word-study; the most rigorous in approach)
All About Words – Nurnberg/Rosenblum (more user-friendly than NL, my personal favourite)
This is by no means a comprehensive list 🙂 Anything by NL. Nurnberg, or Wilfred/Peter Funk is probably worth the price, and I’m sure there are other good authors as well.
Also, mailing lists like AWAD (A Word a Day) or Merriam-Webster/Oxford’s daily word would help to improve vocab. Anopher mailing list “daily writing tips” often has helpful stuff on vocab, idions, usage and grammar. Also web-based resources like the Grammargirl blog can be invaluable when you need to quickly figure out the correct usage or form in which to phrase a sentence.
And from a more general “improving English” perspective, there’s a delightful book on punctuation by Lynn Truss called “Eats, shoots and leaves”. It won’t directly help in entrance tests, but it will impact your communication for sure.
Well this is only supposed to give you an idea of the power of such techniques 🙂 Eventually you will have to go to something like “Word Power Made Easy” (or possibly “All About Words”) for rigourous preparation!
CAT-holics 
Hi J & T ,
which books we can refer for vocabulary development ?
Are there any books/sources on word groups / word roots for vocabulary development ?
Word Power Made Easy – Norma Lewis (the bible of word-study; the most rigorous in approach)
All About Words – Nurnberg/Rosenblum (more user-friendly than NL, my personal favourite)
This is by no means a comprehensive list 🙂 Anything by NL. Nurnberg, or Wilfred/Peter Funk is probably worth the price, and I’m sure there are other good authors as well.
Also, mailing lists like AWAD (A Word a Day) or Merriam-Webster/Oxford’s daily word would help to improve vocab. Anopher mailing list “daily writing tips” often has helpful stuff on vocab, idions, usage and grammar. Also web-based resources like the Grammargirl blog can be invaluable when you need to quickly figure out the correct usage or form in which to phrase a sentence.
And from a more general “improving English” perspective, there’s a delightful book on punctuation by Lynn Truss called “Eats, shoots and leaves”. It won’t directly help in entrance tests, but it will impact your communication for sure.
regards
J
Hey, this picture is blurred for some reason. Could anybody rectify this please! 😀
Done 🙂 Thanks for pointing out…
regards
J
Have always dropped Word Power Made easy after 1-2 chapters. I hope Akbar and Verbals conversation helps me out this time.
Well this is only supposed to give you an idea of the power of such techniques 🙂 Eventually you will have to go to something like “Word Power Made Easy” (or possibly “All About Words”) for rigourous preparation!
regards
J