{"id":1287,"date":"2013-11-13t09:48:25","date_gmt":"2013-11-13t09:48:25","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/sat\/?p=1287"},"modified":"2015-04-15t22:21:05","modified_gmt":"2015-04-15t22:21:05","slug":"how-hard-is-sat-vocabulary-really","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/how-hard-is-sat-vocabulary-really\/","title":{"rendered":"how hard is sat vocabulary, really?"},"content":{"rendered":"

if you haven\u2019t taken any practice sats or done much in the way of prep, you might not realize what, exactly, you\u2019re getting into. sat vocab<\/a> is totally nuts. there will be words on the test that you\u2019ve never<\/i> seen or heard. i mean it.<\/p>\n

oh, you read a lot? and you think you have a great vocabulary? me too. but here\u2019s the thing: there\u2019s still a word or two on most sats that i don\u2019t know. and it\u2019s not just me! that\u2019s true of every other sat teacher i know, too. there\u2019s something wrong with that, right?<\/p>\n

just to be clear about what we\u2019re talking about, take a look at a few of the toughest sat words<\/a> that i\u2019ve taken from actual sats. i don\u2019t think sat vocab repeats often enough that you\u2019ll necessarily see any of these on the version of the test you take, but you might. or you might see some other crazy word, like \u201cimpute.\u201d or \u201cdiaphanous.\u201d and you’ll most likely see some of these frequently tested sat words<\/a> too.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

english is a really, really big language<\/h2>\n

it\u2019s not all that easy to measure how large languages are. truth be told, it\u2019s totally impossible, because languages aren\u2019t clearly defined things. (where does english begin and end? scottish sounds like a whole other language to me.<\/i>) that means that testing vocabulary is a daunting task. the sat makers have to decide which words are fair game, and which are too rare, too old, or too localized to test. is the word \u201ccontrariwise\u201d too outdated to include? how do we decide?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

the sat focuses on academic words<\/h2>\n

for the most part, sat vocabulary is academic vocabulary. to get a sense of what that means, try to imagine how a caricature of a harvard professor might speak. i\u2019m talking about the kind of guy who wears a sweater vest. for a complete picture, give him a hint of a british accent. if you didn\u2019t put your napkin in your lap, he\u2019d think you indecorous<\/i>.<\/p>\n

so as big as english is, the test makers have something to focus on. but here\u2019s the problem\u2014\u201cacademic\u201d words are sometimes really, really <\/i>rare words.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

most sat vocab is reasonable<\/h2>\n

i don\u2019t want to make it sound like the sat has insane expectations; there are just a handful of words on each test that are as difficult as the ones i mentioned. and even if you don\u2019t know those words, if you\u2019ve got a sturdy enough foundation of word-roots, prefixes, and suffixes, you can usually do pretty well. it certainly helps to have a bit of strategy<\/a> in your tool belt, too.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

if you haven\u2019t taken any practice sats or done much in the way of prep, you might not realize what, exactly, you\u2019re getting into. sat vocab is totally nuts. there will be words on the test that you\u2019ve never seen or heard. i mean it. oh, you read a lot? and you think you have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[36,88,34],"ppma_author":[24883],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nhow hard is sat vocabulary, really? - magoosh blog | high school<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/how-hard-is-sat-vocabulary-really\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_us\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"how hard is sat vocabulary, really?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"if you haven\u2019t taken any practice sats or done much in the way of prep, you might not realize what, exactly, you\u2019re getting into. sat vocab is totally nuts. there will be words on the test that you\u2019ve never seen or heard. i mean it. oh, you read a lot? 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