Practicing a List vs. Mastering a List - What's the Difference? – Vocabulary.com Help Center

What is Practice, and when should I do it?

Practice sessions are short exercises generally designed to be done in a single sitting. When you practice a list, you'll play questions on the words in your list. We'll show you a few questions on each word in your list and focus on words that you struggle with. It's like a mini-version of The VocabTrainer, but focused on the words in your list.

We recommend Practice for short-term goals like learning for an upcoming quiz or homework assignment.

Note for Teachers: When you assign a Vocabulary List to a class, you are assigning a Practice activity for that list. When you see progress reports for each student (and the entire class), you are viewing the maximum progress that they have attained in a Practice session. If you are grading students based on Vocabulary.com, we recommend that you use Practice progress for general assignments or homework and the quiz score for tests and, well, quizzes.

Read more: Creating a Quiz

What is Finish Mastery, and when should I use it?

When you click on Finish Mastery, we will work with you until you master every word on the list.

Remember, mastering words takes time, so finishing mastery for a list (which is really mastering every word on that list) can take a long time.