YÖKDİL Vocabulary Strategy by Branch (Health, Social, Science)

YÖKDİL splits into three branches: Sağlık (Health), Sosyal (Social), Fen (Science). The format is YDS-like but the passages and target vocabulary are tilted toward your branch.

Common core (study these regardless of branch)

• High-frequency academic verbs (~150 words)
• Connectors (~60)
• Phrasal verbs (~80)
• Confusable pairs (~40)

These overlap heavily with YDS, so a YDS study foundation transfers.

Branch-specific vocabulary

Sağlık YÖKDİL

Topics: medicine, public health, biology, pharmacy, anatomy.

High-frequency terms:

• General medical: symptom, diagnosis, treatment, prognosis, chronic, acute
• Biology: cell, tissue, organ, metabolism, enzyme, immune
• Public health: epidemic, vaccine, mortality, prevalence, prevention

Sosyal YÖKDİL

Topics: history, sociology, psychology, education, economics, political science.

High-frequency terms:

• Sociology: norm, institution, hierarchy, class, identity
• Psychology: cognition, behaviour, perception, bias, motivation
• Politics/economics: policy, regulation, inflation, deficit, sovereignty

Fen YÖKDİL

Topics: physics, chemistry, geology, engineering, environmental science.

High-frequency terms:

• Physics/chemistry: molecule, compound, reaction, equation, velocity
• Environment: ecosystem, biodiversity, sustainability, pollution, emissions
• Engineering: circuit, structure, mechanism, durability, efficiency

8-week plan

• Weeks 1-3: Common core (300 words across categories)
• Week 4: 50-80 high-frequency branch terms
• Week 5: 50-80 more branch terms + branch-typical passages
• Weeks 6-7: Cloze + sentence completion + reading comprehension
• Week 8: Mock exams, error analysis, weak-area top-up

Common mistakes

• Studying YDS material only. You'll cover the common core but miss branch-specific vocabulary that every YÖKDİL passage uses.
• Memorising lists without context. Especially for science branches, the same word changes meaning across contexts. Solution in chemistry vs. solution in problem-solving.
• Skipping passages from your branch. Passage exposure is half the prep.

How Tilingu helps

Exam mode → YÖKDİL — choose your branch and the system serves a branch-appropriate corpus with the same SRS scheduling and AI practice modes you use elsewhere.