Book provides unique study outlet

By BRENDAN HALL
Initially, the thought that movies such as Twilight or Legally Blonde could bolster people’s vocabulary and better prepare them for the SAT seems beyond outlandish. However, with Name That Movie! by Brian Leaf, an SAT and ACT study book that utilizes movie conversations to isolate prime vocabulary words, students will be able to develop their lexicon easily and with a bit of fun.
Leaf has published multiple books focused on building a person’s vocabulary, each one composed of only one or two genres, the one used here Romantic Comedy and Drama. Some of the movies in the book include Juno, Little Miss Sunshine, Wedding Crashers and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. The book is filled with iconic movies in pop culture, making the dialogue easy to recognize and exciting to discover.
The book’s format is simple; it provides excerpts from the script of a movie, usually a few paragraphs from multiple scenes, and boldfaces the more advanced words in the text. Then below it provides a space for the readers to fill in the movie, the scenes and what they believe the highlighted words mean. Finally, the book has a hint about what the movie is. Once the readers have completed the appropriate information they simply flip to the back for the answers and definitions.
The scenes are quirky and funny, two words never used to describe standardized test prep books. They keep the readers engaged and interested, while in the background they are actually learning and memorizing helpful and advanced vocabulary words.
For people looking to boost their reading scores on any standardized test, Name That Move! ($9.99) is a refreshing and effective book that opens up a new outlet for high schoolers to learn.