What are the twelve powerful words? Trace, Analyze, Infer, Evaluate, Formulate, Describe, Support, Explain, Summarize, Compare, Contrast, Predict.
Why use the twelve powerful words? These are the words that always give students more trouble than others on standardized tests.
Do we need to know the same number as native speakers? In English, for example, the average native speaker knows about 20,000 words.
That goes up to 40,000 words when we're talking about college-educated people.