TOEFL Root Course
Pro60 high-yield roots behind TOEFL academic vocabulary. Learn the system, not the list.
Unit 1 is free · Pro unlocks every course: $6.99/mo or $19.99 lifetime (was $20 / $49)
TOEFL reading passages pull their vocabulary from academic English — geology, biology, astronomy, history. That vocabulary is not random: most of it is built from a compact set of Latin and Greek roots. Structure, construct, and instructor are one root wearing three disguises.
This course covers the 60 roots with the highest TOEFL-word density in our database, organized into 12 themed units. Every lesson teaches one root through its real TOEFL words, then trains the skill the reading section actually tests: inferring an unfamiliar word's meaning from its parts. Each lesson ends with a quiz that retries your misses until you get everything right, and every unit closes with a review that contrasts easily-confused roots.
Unit 1 is free — try the full experience. Pro unlocks this course and every other, with all future updates included.
Course outline
Unit 1Stand & Build
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Five roots that put things in place: st (stand), pos (put), sit (site, situate), struct (build), form (shape). They anchor the vocabulary of institutions, structures, and positions — the backbone of TOEFL academic prose.
Unit 2Seeing & Sensing
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How English perceives: vis (see), sp (look, watch), sent (feel), path (feeling, suffering), tact (touch). From visible evidence to tangible results — the senses run through scientific description.
Unit 3Words & Records
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The roots of communication and scholarship: dic (say), voc (voice, call), log (word, study), graph (write), lect (choose, read). Every -logy discipline and every -graph record starts here.
Unit 4Coming & Going
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Five ways English moves: ced (go, yield), gress (step), ven (come), it (go), mov (move). Processes proceed, species migrate, revolutions progress — motion roots drive the language of change.
Unit 5Carry & Send
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Transport roots: fer (carry), miss (send), tra (pull, drag), ject (throw), car (run, cart). Data gets transferred, signals transmitted, theories projected — the delivery system of academic English.
Unit 6Take, Hold & Share
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Possession and exchange: cap (take, seize), tain (hold), serv (keep, serve), dit (give), part (part, divide). Capacity, maintain, preserve, tradition, particle — holding words hold the curriculum together.
Unit 7Fold, Stretch & Press
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Forces and shapes: vers (turn), plic (fold), tend (stretch), strain (bind, tighten), press (press). Diverse, complicated, extend, constraint, compress — the physics of academic vocabulary.
Unit 8Drive & Create
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The productive engines: fac (make, do), gen (birth, produce), duc (lead), pel (push, drive), act (do, drive). Factors, genes, conduction, propulsion, reactions — how things get made and moved.
Unit 9Amount & Degree
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Measuring roots: minu (small, lessen), val (worth, strength), sim (same, like), ple (fill), vac (empty). Diminish vs. amplify, valid vs. void, similar vs. simulate — the scales TOEFL passages weigh things on.
Unit 10Seek & Settle
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From pursuit to closure: pet (seek, strive), pend (hang, weigh), fin (end, limit), clud (close), stinct (prick, mark off). Compete, depend, define, conclude, distinct — the arc of every research paper.
Unit 11Life & Home
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Living roots: viv (live), spir (breathe), hum (earth, ground), dom (house, master), medi (middle). Survive, respiration, humidity, domestic, intermediate — biology and geography lean on them constantly.
Unit 12Nature in Motion
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The science unit: flu (flow), vol (roll, turn; will), circ (circle), solv (loosen, dissolve), aster (star). Fluid dynamics, evolution, circulation, solubility, astronomy — TOEFL's favorite topics, root by root.