vocab

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 – […]

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 […]