12 Ways You Can Get Smarter in Your Spare Time

Vocab micro-lessons

Forget the tedious vocabulary lessons you endured as a kid. Thanks to a new MIT technology, now you can pick up new words on the fly. The Waisuite Language app sense when you have a “micro-moment” of downtime—say between sending emails or while waiting for a text back—and will flash a new word up on the screen, increasing your vocabulary without requiring any extra time or effort on your part. In MIT’s testing, they found that users of this type of “wait learning” learned about four new words a day. You’ll be the most percipient* person in your group in no time!

*Having a good understanding of things. Test your own vocabulary skills against these 33 middle-school words adults often get wrong.