Music can do a lot for us, but the word is still out on whether it can enhance our ability to stay focused and sharpen our memories during long study sessions. On the one hand, we have a report from the University of Toronto suggesting that fast and loud background music can hinder our performance on reading comprehension. On the other, there’s the recent
 research from the digital music service, Spotify, and Clinical Psychologist Dr. Emma Gray, which proclaims that pop hits from artists like Justin Timberlake, Katy Perry, and Miley Cyrus can actually enhance our cognitive abilities.

“Music has a positive effect on the mind, and listening to the right type of music can actually improve studying and learning,” says Dr. Gray. She even suggests that students who listen to music while studying can perform better than those who do not.

We also cannot leave out the so-called “Mozart Effect,” which alleges that listening to classical music provides short-term enhancement of mental tasks, like memorization. We’ve heard students swear by this tactic, while others say that silence is golden.
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Some song writers really like their vocab! While you probably won’t pick up a lot of GRE words listening to Justin Beiber, here are just a couple suggestions where you might actually enjoy picking up some new vocab.

1. Tidal, Fiona Apple. A 90s classic, if you were a teenage girl in the 90s. Pop in a copy of Tidal on your drive to work and you’ll be exposed to words such as undulate, appeasing, embers, carrion, divination, acquaint, resounded, coercion, inversion, stifled, deviant, sullen, oblivion, cunning, condescend, abound, enrapture, wary, reverence, endeared, discern, oblige, covet, demeanor, contusion, adagio, intrusion, and endeavor.

2.  HMS Pinafore, Gilbert and Sullivan. Okay, seriously, any Gilbert and Sullivan you can get yourself to enjoy is going to fill you with vocab words. This show alone has got saucy, frivolous, depraved, resigned, melodious, consolation, menial, pine, gallant, eloquence, pennant, sprightly, articled, tar, dictatorial, furl, scorn, domineering, tyrant, protrude, audacious, anguish, ignoble I didn’t even make it through half of the songs. And this might be the lightest on vocab of all the Gilbert and Sullivan choices.

3. Black on Both Sides, Mos Def. If you’re a rap fan, this is a fantastic album that you probably already have in your collection. If not, you might check it out if you want the chance to pick up words such as armament, sentiment, brandish, dispossessed, rivalry, saturated, infatuate, glisten, nemesis, scrutinize, staccato, vibrantly, apparition, odyssey, treacherous, testament, beneficent, manifest, reverence, temperament, firmaments, ubiquitous, ephemera, and flagrant, to name just a few.
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