Academic English Selection: NAWL 953 Words
When we read university textbooks, journal papers, or IELTS, TOEFL, and SAT passages, the longest technical noun on the page rarely causes the trouble. Authors almost always define specialized terms like photosynthesis or stratigraphy right inside the sentence. When we check our answers at the end of a practice set, the missed questions usually come down to a handful of familiar-looking academic verbs and adjectives holding the argument together.
Words like plausible, correlate, and empirical show up in every discipline. Take a sentence like His explanation sounded plausible: when I first memorized word lists, I only remembered “plausible = reasonable,” so I quickly checked the answer choice saying the author agreed with the explanation. Only on a second reading did I notice the verb sounded—the author was merely saying the hypothesis looked convincing on the surface, right before dismantling it with experimental data in the next paragraph.
On the Mocavoca bookshelf, our Academic Word List (NAWL) wordbook collects 953 high-utility academic entries from the New Academic Word List (NAWL 1.2), compiled by Dr. Charles Browne, Brent Culligan, and Joseph Phillips across a 288-million-word corpus of contemporary research papers, university textbooks, and lectures. Paired with core everyday English (NGSL), these 953 words bring text coverage of academic reading to roughly 92%—small enough to finish comfortably in two to three months.
Four cards from the NAWL wordbook
We pulled four everyday workhorses from Mocavoca’s built-in nawl-academic-selected wordbook—empirical, correlate, plausible, and parameter—to look at how their watercolor scenes, collocations, and tone work inside a full sentence.
empirical
/ˌɛˈmpɪrɪkəl/ · adj. based on what is observed or tested, not on theory
The claim needs empirical evidence from real experiments.
这个说法需要来自真实实验的实证证据。
Notice how the sentence pairs empirical evidence directly with from real experiments. In academic writing, empirical stands in direct contrast to purely theoretical or speculative reasoning. Whenever we spot empirical data, empirical findings, or empirical support in a journal article, the author is signaling that someone went out and measured, observed, or tested the phenomenon in the real world.
correlate
/ˈkɔrəˌleɪt/ · v. to have a close connection with something else
Sleep hours correlate closely with test scores.
睡眠时长与考试成绩密切相关。
As we read this card, we can lock in the preposition with (correlate closely with) right away. Even more important is its logical restraint: saying sleep hours correlate with test scores means the two curves rise and fall together, without claiming that one single-handedly caused the other. Reading comprehension questions love to write that A correlates with B in the passage and then slip A causes B into a trap option.
plausible
/ˈplɔzəbəl/ · adj. seeming reasonable or likely to be true
His excuse for being late sounded plausible.
他迟到的借口听起来很合理。
This is the word we talked about at the opening. Look at the verb right in front of it: sounded plausible. When a scholar describes an earlier hypothesis as plausible, there is almost always a note of caution attached—it sounds reasonable in theory, even if decisive proof is still missing. Remembering that subtle reservation helps us read the author’s stance accurately.
parameter
/pɚˈæmətɚ/ · n. a value or limit that shapes how something works
You can change this parameter in the settings.
你可以在设置中修改这个参数。
In code or lab experiments, we tweak a parameter in the settings every day; in humanities, law, and policy essays, we more often meet the plural form—within the parameters of the budget or the parameters of the inquiry—to mean the boundaries defining a discussion. Listening to the audio, notice how the stress lands on the second syllable (/pɚˈæmətɚ/), with three a’s up front and two e’s at the end.
Pacing all 953 words
Because academic words carry abstract meanings, cramming fifty of them in a single sitting quickly blurs them together. If we treated all 953 entries as brand-new words from scratch, studying 8 new words a day would take 120 study days, and 12 new words a day would take 80 study days (counting first-pass introduction days before reviews).
Fortunately, anyone who already reads intermediate English knows roughly a third of this list—words like obtain or distribution. Whenever a familiar word appears on screen in Mocavoca, we can tap “Mark as familiar” to skip today’s drills and schedule a single check 3 days later. Filtering out known words brings the remaining workload down to a comfortable two-month rhythm.
| Daily new-word pace | First pass if all 953 words are new | First pass after marking ~300 known words familiar | Steady-state daily time (after Day 10) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 new words / day | 191 study days | ~131 study days | ~8 min / day |
| 8 new words / day | 120 study days | ~82 study days | ~12–15 min / day |
| 12 new words / day | 80 study days | ~55 study days | ~18–20 min / day |
If we are also preparing with the IELTS (5,031 words) or TOEFL (6,970 words) wordbooks, we can switch between NAWL and our exam book anytime. Mocavoca keeps an independent progress log and 1–3–7–14–30 day review queue for every wordbook on the shelf.
Open the Academic Word List in Mocavoca
Includes 953 NAWL entries with watercolor scenes, pronunciation audio, example sentences, and 1–3–7–14–30 day spaced repetition. Free to download; full access to all wordbooks and learning features requires a monthly subscription.
Frequently asked questions
How is the New Academic Word List (NAWL) different from Coxhead’s classic 570-word AWL?
Coxhead’s original AWL (2000) was built on top of the 1953 General Service List. The New Academic Word List (NAWL 1.2) was compiled by Browne, Culligan, and Phillips from a modern 288-million-word academic corpus to pair directly with the New General Service List (NGSL), removing everyday overlap and capturing 953 core academic words across contemporary science, humanities, and business writing.
If I switch between NAWL and the IELTS or TOEFL wordbooks, will my review queues get mixed up?
No. Mocavoca stores a separate record book for each wordbook on your shelf, keeping Not started, Learning, Review due, and Mastered counts completely independent.
Corpus attribution
Headwords are selected from the New Academic Word List 1.2 by Browne, C., Culligan, B. & Phillips, J. (CC BY-SA 4.0), with definitions, bilingual example sentences, and watercolor illustrations created by the Mocavoca team.
IELTS (5,031) & TOEFL (6,970) Wordbooks · JLPT N5 Japanese Selection · 1–3–7–14–30 Spaced Repetition Schedule · How to Choose a Vocabulary App · Calculate Your Daily Pace · Download & Subscription Details