well, hold on, partner, because the act tests vocabulary, too.<\/p>\n
now that i\u2019ve sufficiently ruined your day, let\u2019s talk about one of the ways that the act tests your vocabulary: jargon.<\/p>\n
jargon is just a fancy word for specialized vocabulary<\/em>. every profession, hobby, interest, or group has its own vocabulary that they don\u2019t need to define within themselves every biologist will know the terms genome<\/em> and punnett square<\/em>; every decent seamstress knows her back stitch<\/em> from her batting<\/em>; every gamer can tell his rpg\u2019s<\/em> from his fps\u2019s<\/em>. <\/p>\n it makes talking to that group really difficult<\/em> when you\u2019re not part of it! they\u2019ll use language that will have you scrambling for a gamer-to-english dictionary. and that\u2019s jargon in a nutshell: vocabulary that the author didn\u2019t need to define for his or her intended audience because they already knew what those words meant<\/em>.<\/p>\n for you on the act, that means in nearly every section (i\u2019m looking at you, science test!), there will be some vocabulary that is included just to intimidate you<\/em>. jargon is intended to throw you off your game and use your fear of \u201csat words\u201d against you. basically:<\/p>\n luckily, you don\u2019t need a biology-to-english dictionary here! there is one surefire way to deal with jargon: deal with it as it comes. if the word or concept is important to the passage, it will be defined or revisited later. if there\u2019s a question about that particular vocabulary word, you have my permission to puzzle over what it means. otherwise, don\u2019t even pay attention to it. keep your cool, don\u2019t be intimidated, and handle the jargon only if you need to. what comes to mind when you see the phrase \u201csat word\u201d? probably some difficult, maybe even abstruse, word that you\u2019ve never seen before and will probably never actually use. \u201cabstruse\u201d might even be a good example (but it\u2019s an adjective meaning \u201cdifficult to understand,\u201d in case you ever need it). you may be thinking, though, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[3,16],"ppma_author":[24906],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"it'satrap\"](\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/act\/files\/2015\/04\/itsatrap.png\")
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