[marcinw]

I must admit, as an American male, a little older than you, my score was also so low, I'm too embarrassed to even mention. All those years of cheating on vocabulary tests (merely by memorizing the words 5 minutes prior to taking the test) in high school did not help. It's one of the those things I look back on in life and regret. Does anyone have any suggestions on ways to catch up ?

edit: forgot to mention, while I am a native English speaker, both my parents tend to speak Polish most of the time, while I always reply in English. I have to wonder how much this had an affect on me.

[georgieporgie]

Read a lot. In fact, buy a Kindle and read a lot. It has a built-in dictionary which is quite decent, and you'll actually look up words that you would otherwise skim past with a mediocre context-based understanding.