VOCABULARYCAROL WHITE

If you are motivated to put in the time to improve your vocabulary, there are many good sources for vocabulary lists: Hot Words for the SAT, any of the Princeton Review WordSmart lists, and the vocabulary section in The Underground Guide for the SAT’s are great.

However, if you are not in a position to devote months or weeks to memorizing vocabulary, I am including a short list of 75 words. These are the basic words you definitely should know, words that appear with great frequency on the SAT. In addition, you should be reading as much as possible. I know you are all probably stressed out from all the assigned reading in class, and you probably wouldn’t select The Scarlet Letter or Tess of the D’Urbervilles to read for pleasure if you had a choice. So, read magazines- lots of them. If you are interested in music, read Rolling Stone or Spin; your vocabulary will increase if you read and if you read things you are interested in, then it’s all pretty painless. Even passive exposure to vocabulary through movies and television is better than nothing.

One note about memorizing vocabulary lists.

The worst way to learn vocabulary is by memorizing lists. The best way to learn vocabulary is through context in books, magazines, movies, and conversation. However, let’s say you are a month or two away from the test and you need to memorize the short list I have included here. It’s fine to begin memorizing by yourself with note cards or by covering the word and seeing if you can recall the definition, but after you think you know the words, get someone to help you. Ask mom, dad, brother, sister to review the words with you orally. Anytime you learn something through more than one sensory pathway, the odds of really learning it improve. You know that when you memorize vocabulary for a quiz in school, you might earn an A on the quiz, but two weeks later you would probably fail the same test. Get a study buddy to quiz you on the list a few times each week. This routine will take only a few minutes, but you will be rewarded in the end.

Vocabulary to Memorize Now!! These words appear with great frequency on the SAT.

1.innocuous- harmless

  1. static- not moving
  2. to champion- to support
  3. garrulous- talkative
  4. taciturn- quiet
  5. conventional- traditional, usual
  6. novelty- something new and different
  7. ambi- two/both
  8. ambiguous- open to more than one interpretation; confusing
  9. ambivalent- feeling two ways at the same time; usually conflicting emotions
  10. prudent- careful
  11. eclectic- diverse, from various sources
  12. interminable- never ending
  13. peerless- perfect
  14. dogmatic- bossy, insisting on own way
  15. dogged- tenacious, unyielding
  16. charlatan- a person who pretends to be an expert; fake; quack
  17. adversary- enemy
  18. cliché or platitude- overused expression. On the SAT these words will be described as: common, banal, hackneyed, stale, trite
  19. elegy- sad song or poem
  20. lament- expression of sorrow
  21. tactful- knowing the right thing to say; diplomatic
  22. to reclaim- to take bad land and make it useful again
  23. reverence- great respect
  24. iconoclast- a person who goes against tradition
  25. score- written down music
  26. indolent- lazy
  27. apathy- without feeling
  28. miser- a person who hoards his money
  29. frugal- careful with money
  30. surfeit- excessive amount
  31. aesthetic- dealing with art and beauty
  32. hedonist- a person who seeks pleasure
  33. verbose- wordy
  34. vociferous- loud
  35. tirade- abusive speech
  36. ephemeral- short lived; transient
  37. novice, neophyte, rookie- beginner
  38. spurious- not authentic or true
  39. prologue- comes before a play
  40. epilogue- comes after a play
  41. forward : afterward – before and after a novel
  42. postscript: ps comes after a letter
  43. overture- comes in the beginning of a musical piece
  44. malcontent- a person who is never satisfied
  45. surreptitious- sneaky, stealthy
  46. prolific- producing a lot
  47. querulous- complaining
  48. assiduous- hard working
  49. archipelago- group of islands
  50. aberration- something different from normal; deviation
  51. arboreal- relating to trees
  52. aviary- big bird cage
  53. to bay- to howl like a dog
  54. culpable- guilty
  55. destitute- very poor
  56. ennui- boredom
  57. to extol- to praise
  58. impromptu- without rehearsal; improvised
  59. gratis- free
  60. to mollify- to calm; to make less severe
  61. mercenary- motivated by greed
  62. to loathe- to hate; to abhor
  63. lithe- flexible, graceful
  64. pallid- pale
  65. pariah- an person who is an outcast
  66. purge- to cleanse
  67. recluse- a person who is a hermit
  68. sedentary- stationary; in one place
  69. to spurn- to reject
  70. ubiquitous- common, found everywhere
  71. to usurp- to seize by force
  72. to vacillate- to waver; to go back and forth
  73. virtuoso- a person who is an expert in something- usually music
  74. wily- clever and sneaky