Vocab help

4 Tips for Using Your Vacation Wisely to Prep for Winter and Spring SATs, ACTs, and SSATs

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You’ve worked hard this semester—or at least that’s what you’ve told your parents ;-). You deserve a relaxing vacation, and at CPE we wish you a great time skiing, beaching, playing, hanging, reading, vegging, keeping your mask on and social distancing from others, and whatever else you like to do to unwind and recharge your batteries for the second semester. If you’re facing February-June SATs, ACTs, or SSATs (see dates here) and you’re honest with yourself, you know you can have a kick-butt vacation, do all the things you want to do, and/or spend LOTS of time doing nothing at […]

Root & Synonym Clusters 10: Short-lived, Temporary

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Nothing lasts forever, and the College Board knows it. Many fancy SAT words have the flavor, if not exact meaning of “short-lived” or “temporary,” and here they are: Follow Dr. Yo on Pinterest   temporary – adjective – lasting for only a limited period of time; not permanent: a temporary job. transient – adjective – lasting only for a short time; impermanent: a transient cold spell. noun – a person who is staying or working in a place for only a short time transitory – adjective – not permanent: transitory periods of medieval greatness. ephemeral – adjective – lasting for a very short time: fashions are ephemeral. evanescent – adjective – soon passing out of sight, memory, or existence; quickly fading ordisappearing: a shimmering evanescent bubble. fleeting – adjectivelasting for a very short time: hoping to get a fleeting glimpse of […]

Root & Synonym Clusters 8: ARROGANT

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Don’t you hate it when you have to deal with people who think they’re better than you? People who make you feel like you’re not smart enough, classy enough, or just plain good enough to deserve their time and attention? Hey, EVERYONE is ignorant, just on a different set of subjects. But anyway, there are words that pop up frequently on the SAT for people who think they’re better than everyone else, and here they are: pompous – affectedly and irritatingly grand, solemn, or self-important: a pompous ass who pretends he knows everything. disdainful – showing contempt or lack of respect: with a last disdainful look, she turned toward the door. supercilious – behaving […]

Root & Synonym Clusters 9: STUBBORN

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Here are a bunch of words all clustered around STUBBORN. Try using them on your hard-nosed friends–not to make them angry, but to learn the words!   adamant – refusing to be persuaded or to change one’s mind: he is adamant thathe is not going to resign. dogged – having or showing tenacity and grim persistence: success required dogged determination. obstinate – stubbornly refusing to change one’s opinion or chosen course of action, despite attempts to persuade one to do so. obdurate – stubbornly refusing to change one’s opinion or course of action. pertinacious – holding firmly to an opinion or a course of action: he worked with a pertinacious resistance to interruptions. unyielding – or structure) not giving way to pressure; hard or solid: the […]

Root & Synonym Clusters 7: To look Down On, aka “D” words

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In our Root & Synonym Clusters 5: Laud Roots and to Praise Synonyms, we encountered words we use when we look up to people. In this new installment we consider their antonyms, words we use to “look down on.” For some crazy reason, many of them begin with the letter “D,” which you can use to your advantage as a mnemonic. Do you know that word, mnemonic?   decry – publicly denounce: they decried human rights abuses. denigrate – to speak damagingly of; criticize in a derogatory manner; sully; defame: to denigrate someone’s character defame – to attack the good name or reputation of, as by uttering or publishing maliciously or falsely anything injurious; calumniate: The newspaper editorial defamed the politician. deprecate – express disapproval of: he sniffed in a deprecating way. disparage – regard or represent as being of little worth: he never missed an opportunity to disparage his competitors. disdain […]

Root & Synonym Clusters 6: Lazy or Lacking Energy Synonyms

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On these hot, humid, days, we all tend to feel a little lethargic, torpid, slothful.  And while being lazy never got anyone into top colleges, the CollegeBoard LOVES putting words that mean lazy or lacking energy on the SAT.  So here are a whole bunch of them to learn and associate together: apathetic – showing or feeling no interest, enthusiasm, or concern: lethargic –  sluggish and apathetic lackadaisical – lacking enthusiasm and determination; carelessly lazy indolent – wanting to avoid activity or exertion; lazy. slothful – lazy perfunctory – carried out with a minimum of effort or reflection torpid – […]

Becoming a Vocab Sponge: Learning SAT Vocab Quickly and Effectively

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Listen to internet radio with CollegePrepExpress on Blog Talk Radio   Tired of looking at lists of SAT words organized alphabetically? Does the idea of flipping through yet another set of flashcards make you want to throw up a little bit in your mouth? Then tune in to this episode of “Prep Talk,” when Dr. Yo will share the many secrets of increasing your vocabulary exponentially in the easiest, most enjoyable, and highly effective ways. He’ll also be joined by Anthony Green, President of eLearning Affiliates, and two TEEN EXPERTS (Oliver Beers, SAT student, and Molly Donahue, SSAT student) who’ll […]

Root & Synonym Clusters 5: “Laud” Roots and To Praise Synonyms

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This word cluster features lots of SAT words that mean “to praise,” many of which use the root “laud,” and some of which do not. The very common word “applause,” for example, means to express praise in the form of clapping.  Here are a whole slew of words you can associate with PRAISE: applaud – to show praise by clapping laud – to praise highly, especially publically laudable – praiseworthy laudatory – expressing praise plaudits – praise, applause extol – to praise accolade – honor, award, privilege awarded in praise adulation – extreme or excessive praise or admiration eulogy – […]

Root & Synonym Clusters 4: “Hard to Get Along With”

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Do you know any, um, how shall we say, difficult people? Yeah, me, too. Here’s a great list of challenging SAT words that all mean, roughly, “hard to get along with.” The subtle differences in meaning, for the philologists out there, follow below. For most folks, especially SAT takers, just knowing that all these words describe people who are, for one reason or another, cranky, hostile, aggressive, difficult, and just plain hard to get along with. belligerent  (“belli” = “war,” as in antebellum) – hostile bellicose – warlike recalcitrant – stubborn and uncooperative intractable – stubborn and unruly truculent – […]

Root & Synonym Clusters 3: “To Make Better” Synonyms

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The first two posts in our new Word Clusters series focus on recognizing roots of words to enable you to kill many vocab birds with a single stone. Another highly effective memorization strategy is to group words by synonym rather than alphabetically (as many books unfortunately do). You know how your brain works: sometimes you remember exactly where on the page you read something (e.g., the lower left-hand side) or which words are above and below the word you’re trying to remember. Say you’re working with a list of words organized alphabetically or perhaps randomly, and say you remember the […]

Root & Synonym Clusters 2: “not” + root + (adj.) suffix

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Lots of fancy SAT words are constructed with the basic formula, “not” + root + (adj.) suffix. Train yourself to look for 1) prefixes meaning “not” (like, “un,” “im,” “in,” “a,” and “ir”), 2) roots that you can identify or that look like other words you know, and 3) word endings that make for adjectives (like “ous,” “ate,” “ed,” and “al”).  Take, for example, “immutable.” The prefix “im” means “not” and the suffix “able” means “able to be.” The root “mut” is the same as that found in “mutation,” which means change (as in, change in the gene pool). So, […]

Root & Synonym Clusters, “loc” and “loq”

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One great way to learn lots of vocab quickly is to associate GROUPS of words together. Rather than simply memorizing long vocab lists organized alphabetically, or other ways that have little or nothing to do with the meanings of individual words, if you learn words in clusters, then knowing ANY of the words in the cluster can help you remember any pf the other words in the cluster–or at least get you in the ballpark. One of my favorite vocab books that capitalizes on this concept is Barron’s 601 Words You Need to Know to Pass Your Exam (Barron’s 601 […]

10 Words on the SAT That Don’t Mean What You Think

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One of the three bodies of material covered on the SAT is vocabulary. It’s a substantial body of material, to be sure, but since the days of the Princeton Review’s Hit Parade and other lists culled from ACTUAL, PUBLISHED SATs, at least the CollegeBoard’s word bank isn’t a mystery any more. Any real student of the test can discover what words are on the exam, and those words can be systematically studied in preparation. At CollegePrepExpress, for example, we give students access to all the challenging vocabulary, Critical Reading section by Critical Reading Section in the CollegeBoard’s Official Guide to the […]

10 Ways to Study SAT Vocab (without studying SAT vocab)

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Does anything sound less appealing than “studying SAT vocabulary”? It’s like a foreign phrase that translates to “take a nap RIGHT NOW.” Yet, it’s a necessary practice if you want to maximize your SAT scores. Because this task is universally accepted as a snooze fest, plenty of creative, innovative folks have devised fun activities that will teach you to memorize and recognize these words without ever feeling like you are working at it. Here are just a few ways you can beef up your vocab while preparing dinner, rocking out with your friends, or reading a cool best-seller: 1. Think […]