On Vocabulary:

I do not like studying vocabulary much at all. I find it boring since it is just straight memorization and requires no deeper thinking, but just (in my opinion), passive reading of definitions or tedious activities aimed at drilling the definitions into our heads. No matter how much I dislike it, I do find it important, at least in the beginning years when we learn more basic, common words. As we get into high school and college, when we start to learn words like discombobulated (just the first complex word to pop into my head) it get to be less important since the use of these words are rarer and many people can live productive lives without knowing some of the obscure words. You can always just ask someone what the word meant unless you are too proud to admit you don't know what it means. In that case, you can torture yourself with knowing words no body uses just in case somebody does use it. If the word is in a book or you encounter it in daily life, you can always just look it up in a dictionary.