The best way to learn words and their meaning is to use them That's what the Million Dollar Vocabulary course aims to get you to do. Even the course manual brings the words into play.
For memorising your list you need to move quickly beyong just memorising them. You can use peg systems or even the ABC list from the Memory Optimizer course.
If I were in your boots I'd talk the list into a tape recorder. Have Vivaldi's Four Seasons (or any baroque music) playing in the background while I'm recording and then read it to the tempo of the music 3 times each word, slow, normal, fast.
Then I would take a leaf out of Win Wengers book and adapt the method for learning to play an insturment and listen once undistracted to the recording immediately after creating it and follow that with a listening in the background while doing other thing like cleaning, or showering.
Listen a minimum of 10 times [A leaf out of Tony Buzans book the method for learning to remember you line in a play] Since you repeat them 3 times on the recording I'd say that by the end of one week you'll have at least 60% memorised. Because it is your own voice it will have more impact on memorising also.
Follow this with the memory supercharger at the end of the day and perhaps the Personal Genius Paraliminal in the mornings.
I get the impression that you need to get ready for this exam soon perhaps 2 months at the longest so I'll be blunt. Now is not a good time to "do another course".
Whenever you learn a new method of studying you need to allow for a period of learning and follow that with 21 to 30 days of playful intergration.
