Vocab practice · 1 of 2
The study stalled because of a paucity of volunteers: only four people signed up.
Which meaning fits?
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Estimated time
- 35 minutes
- Practice
- Words in Context question bank
What you’ll learn
- Predict the blank first, then place each hard choice by its group and its end of the scale.
- Use 24 SAT words for how much there is, how much it matters, which way it changes and how alike things are.
- Tell each word's charge, and use the end of the scale when the word is neutral.
- Cross out a choice from the wrong group or the wrong end, even before you can define it.
- Keep apart the look-alikes: negligible and negligent, supplement and supplant, disparate and disparage.
Why this matters on the SAT
Many hard SAT words measure something
Many of the hard words in SAT choices measure something: how much of it there is, how much it matters, which way it changes or how alike two things are. In about three in ten words in context questions, the clue is clear and the choice comes down to knowing a hard word. The SAT rarely uses the same hard word twice, so this lesson teaches words in groups. Know a word's group and its end of the scale, and you can often cross it out before you know its exact meaning.
Solution to the example
Clue: the signal not shameful but rather, from a leader urging participants to embrace failure.
Predict: the missteps help; they're essential to innovation.
Cross out by group and charge: detrimental (B, harmful) is negative, and the blank is positive. Tangential (A, only slightly connected) and irrelevant (D, not connected at all) sit at the low end of the importance scale.
Check: integral (essential, needed to make the whole) sits at the top, so the answer is C.
B tempts most: detrimental (harmful) fits failure if you skip “but rather”, which turns the blank positive.
SAT example
During the summer institute, the workshop leader urged participants to embrace “productive failure,” arguing that repeated missteps are not shameful but rather _____ to genuine innovation.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
- A
tangential
- B
detrimental
- C
integral
- D
irrelevant
Place a hard word on its scale
Each word in this lesson belongs to a group, the thing it measures, and usually sits toward one end of that group's scale. The next five sections build four scales:
| Group | One end | The other end |
|---|---|---|
| How much there is | too little: paucity | a lot, or everywhere: profusion, ubiquitous |
| How much it matters | essential: integral | minor or beside the point: peripheral, extraneous |
| Which way it changes | up or past: amplify, outstrip | down: diminish |
| How alike things are | alike: homogeneous | different: disparate |
Many of these words are neutral in charge: ubiquitous neither praises nor blames. For them, the end of the scale does the work a charge does. So once you've predicted the blank, a choice from the wrong group or the wrong end can go, even if you couldn't define it. In the examples, the clue is underlined, the word in the blank is bold and a crossed-out choice is struck through.
- Note: Clue
- The archive holds a _____ of letters from the war years: only a handful survived the fire.
- Note: Predict
- too few
- Note: Cross out
profusion, a lot: the right group, the wrong end.disparity, a difference: the wrong group.- Correct
- The archive holds a paucity of letters from the war years: only a handful survived the fire.
That's the move this lesson adds to the routine from the first lesson, in its fourth step:
- Find the clue: read the whole text and find the words that show what the blank means.
- Read the signal: same way, cause and effect, or opposite; flip for a negation; when the whole text is the clue, follow the turn.
- Predict the blank in your own plain words, or at least its charge.
- Cross out the choices that don't match, working from the words you know: by meaning, or by group and charge, or for a neutral word its end of the scale, when you only know where a word sits.
- Check the choice that's left: does the text show exactly this?
Words that say there’s too little
Four words say there's too little: too little of something, too little left, too little to matter or too little developed. All four sit at the low end of the amount scale, but they don't all carry the same charge.
| Word | Plain meaning | Charge |
|---|---|---|
| paucity (a noun) | too little of something; a shortage | negative |
| depleted | used up, or nearly | negative |
| negligible | too small to count or to matter | neutral: good or bad depends on what's small |
| rudimentary | elementary; still at an early stage | neutral for a first step, negative for finished work |
- Correct
- The early maps were vague because of a paucity of records: only two surveyors had ever crossed the range.
- Correct
- The reservoir was so depleted by August that the old church it had flooded reappeared.
- Correct
- The new filter's effect on the water's taste was negligible: in a blind test, no one could tell the difference.
- Correct
- The robot's first map of the room was rudimentary, a rough box with a few dots for the chairs.
Negligible takes its charge from what's small. A negligible risk is good news; a negligible improvement is bad news. It also isn't negligent, the word for careless that lesson 4's cards set beside it: the two share a Latin root, but negligible is about size, not care.
Use each sentence's clue to pick the word's meaning.
Try the move on this SAT question: predict from the clue first, then ask which way each amount word points.
Practice problems
Desert plants and water
Practice problem
Many desert plants close tiny pores in their leaves during the hottest, driest part of the day. Because water vapor can escape through these pores, closing them reduces water loss and helps the plant _____ its limited water supply.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
Words that say there’s a lot, or it’s everywhere
At the other end of the amount scale, four words say there's plenty, all of it, or everywhere.
| Word | Plain meaning | Charge |
|---|---|---|
| profusion (a noun) | a great amount; plenty, sometimes too much | neutral |
| exhaustive | leaving nothing out | positive or neutral |
| ubiquitous | turning up everywhere | neutral |
| saturated (the verb is saturate) | full to the limit, with no room for more | neutral, often too much |
- Correct
- The reef teems with a profusion of fish, so many that divers can't see past them.
- Correct
- The inspector's report was exhaustive: it listed every bolt, weld and hinge on the bridge.
- Correct
- In the old port town, gulls are ubiquitous: they perch on every roof, railing and fishing boat.
- Correct
- By election week, the town was saturated with posters: not a bare wall or fence was left on Main Street.
A soaked towel is saturated, and the word stretches to anything filled until there's no room for more: a town, a market, an exhibit. Exhaustive isn't exhausting. An exhaustive search leaves nothing out, which is usually praise; an exhausting one wears you out. And ubiquitous sounds a little like unique, but it means the opposite of rare.
Use each sentence's clue to pick the word's meaning.
Vocab practice · 1 of 3
The bakery window held a profusion of pastries, stacked three deep on every tray.
Which meaning fits?
In this SAT question, a word from this section is the trap. Predict first, then see which end of the scale the clue points to.
Practice problems
A documentary about the 1970s
Practice problem
Although the documentary provides extensive archival footage, its examination of the social movements of the 1970s remains _____; it highlights only a few rallies and neglects the broader political backdrop.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
Words that rank how much something matters
This scale runs from essential to beside the point. The top end counts, the bottom end counts for little, and the words there lean negative. The table runs from top to bottom.
| Word | Plain meaning | Charge |
|---|---|---|
| integral | needed to make the whole; can't be taken out | positive |
| supplemental (the verb is supplement) | added to what's there; extra | neutral |
| peripheral | off at the edges; of minor importance | neutral, leaning negative |
| redundant | more than is needed, often by repeating | negative |
| extraneous | not belonging; beside the point | negative |
Inconsequential, from lesson 4's opening, sits at the bottom too: in- (not) + consequential, of no importance.
- Correct
- Rhythm is integral to the poem: read it without the beat and its meaning goes flat.
- Correct
- The audio tour adds supplemental stories for visitors who want more than the wall labels give.
- Correct
- The cousin is a peripheral character, appearing in only two scenes and never changing the plot.
- Correct
- The second alarm was redundant: it rang in the same room, at the same moment, as the first.
- Correct
- The witness kept adding extraneous facts, like her plans for the weekend, none of which bore on the crash.
Supplement adds; supplant replaces. The two look alike but come from different Latin words, so a text about adding to an account wants the first, and one about taking its place wants the second. Peripheral and extraneous are close too: a peripheral detail still belongs, off at the edge, while an extraneous one doesn't belong at all.
Use each sentence's clue to pick the word's meaning.
Vocab practice · 1 of 3
The final chapter is integral to the mystery: without it, none of the earlier clues make sense.
Which meaning fits?
On this SAT question, predict from the colon, then find the word at the right end of the importance scale.
Practice problems
Letters in the footnotes
Practice problem
In her first outline, the historian relied on cabinet minutes and treated letters from ordinary citizens as _____ evidence: the letters fell outside the scope of her central argument rather than adding support to it and appeared only in footnotes. In revision, however, she built the narrative around those letters.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
Verbs that turn something up, down or past
These five are verbs that change a degree: they make something bigger, smaller or milder, or go past it. Their charge is mostly neutral, so what tells them apart is their direction.
| Word | Plain meaning | Charge |
|---|---|---|
| amplify | make bigger or stronger | neutral; points up |
| diminish | shrink, or make shrink; also make seem less important | neutral; points down |
| moderate | soften; keep within limits | neutral; points to the middle |
| outstrip | go beyond; exceed | neutral; points past |
| eclipse | outshine, leaving the other in the shadow | neutral; points past |
- Correct
- One angry review amplified the rumors about the restaurant, and by the weekend its tables sat empty.
- Correct
- Years of overfishing diminished the cod catch, until the boats came back half empty.
- Correct
- The sea breeze moderates the island's heat, keeping summer afternoons mild.
- Correct
- Sales of the small paperback soon outstripped the hardcover's: within a year it had sold three copies for every one.
- Correct
- The new stadium eclipsed the old town hall as the city's landmark: postcards stopped showing the hall at all.
Two of these are better known in another role. Moderate is also an adjective meaning medium, as in a moderate price; as a verb, it means tone down. And eclipse keeps its picture from the sky, one body hiding another's light: when one thing eclipses another, it outshines it and pushes it out of view.
Use each sentence's clue to pick the word's meaning.
Vocab practice · 1 of 3
A dry wind can amplify a small brush fire, turning it into a blaze that crosses the ridge within the hour.
Which meaning fits?
On this SAT question, predict from the clue, then pick the verb that moves things the way the text does.
Practice problems
Plot twists and a quiet achievement
Practice problem
Literary critic Alina Moreau observes that discussions of a novel often fixate on its most dramatic plot twists. But if reviewers focus only on surprise, they may _____ its quieter achievement: the painstaking way the author shapes the narrator’s voice.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
Words for how alike or different things are
The last scale runs from the same to unlike: the parts of one thing, two things side by side, or a thing set against the usual or against what came before.
| Word | Plain meaning | Charge |
|---|---|---|
| homogeneous | all of one kind, with no mix | neutral |
| analogous | alike in one key respect; comparable | neutral |
| derivative | taken from earlier work, with nothing new | negative when it judges art or ideas |
| multifaceted | many-sided | neutral or positive |
| disparate | very different; with little in common | neutral |
| anomaly (a noun) | an exception; the odd one out | neutral |
Uniform is the everyday word for homogeneous. Atypical and interchangeable come apart by their parts: a- (not, as in lesson 4) + typical, and inter- (between) + change + -able, so able to be swapped.
- Correct
- The rock sample was homogeneous: every chip the lab tested held the same minerals in the same amounts.
- Correct
- The scientist calls a tree's rings analogous to a diary: each ring records what that year was like.
- Correct
- The new library looks derivative: its columns, dome and steps copy the courthouse across the square.
- Correct
- The inventor was multifaceted: she designed bridges, painted portraits and ran a shipping company.
- Correct
- The two reports on the flood are so disparate that one counts six houses lost and the other sixty.
- Correct
- The painter's one bright self-portrait is an anomaly: everything else she made is in quiet grays.
Disparate isn't disparage. Disparate things are very different; to disparage something is to belittle it, a word for attitude rather than difference. And derivative sounds neutral, since derive only means to draw from a source, but said of a novel or a theory, it's a criticism: nothing new.
Use each sentence's clue to pick the word's meaning.
Vocab practice · 1 of 3
The class was homogeneous: nearly every student came from the same town and had had the same teachers.
Which meaning fits?
This SAT question puts an alike word among the choices. Check exactly what the text says about likeness before you take it.
Practice problems
Three styles in one score
Practice problem
Composer Lena Ortiz combines brass-band marches, electronic pulses, and folk melodies in a single theater score. The score never sounds patched together, however, because a recurring three-note motif appears in each musical style. The motif makes the score _____ without making its individual sections sound alike.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
Example: a lure that matches half the clue
In this question, a word from the too-little group matches the first half of the clue, and a “but” turns away from it.
Worked example
Even at 400 kilometers above Earth, a satellite encounters traces of atmosphere that exert a faint drag force. No single orbit changes the satellite’s altitude by much, but the drag is _____, with each small loss of speed adding to the last until a reboost becomes necessary.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
- A
cumulative
- B
negligible
- C
restorative
- D
erratic
Step 1
Find the clue and its signal
The sentence with the blank has two halves joined by “but”. Before it: No single orbit changes the satellite’s altitude by much. After the blank comes the clue: with each small loss of speed adding to the last until a reboost becomes necessary. “But” turns from the small change in one orbit to what the losses do together. Predict adds up.
Step 2
Cross out what you know
Erratic means irregular, hard to predict. The text describes a steady build-up, one loss after another, so D goes. Restorative means bringing back. Drag takes speed away, so C goes too.
Step 3
Turn away from the lure
Negligible, from the too-little group, tempts most: so small it can be ignored. It matches a faint drag force and No single orbit changes the satellite’s altitude by much, the half of the sentence before “but”. The blank sits after the turn, though, and there the losses add up until the satellite needs a reboost. A drag that forces a reboost can't be ignored, so B goes.
Step 4
Check the last choice
Cumulative means increasing by one addition after another; it comes from the Latin for heap, like accumulate. That's with each small loss of speed adding to the last until a reboost becomes necessary: the text shows exactly this. The answer is A.
- Correct
- No single orbit changes the satellite’s altitude by much, but the drag is cumulative, with each small loss of speed adding to the last.
Example: cross out your way to a word you don’t know
In this question, the answer is a word few students know. The lesson's words, and the group and charge of two others, take care of the rest.
Worked example
To help beginners distinguish several nearly identical sparrow species, a field-guide author avoided cataloging every known feature. While testing a checklist, the author removed any trait that duplicated another trait’s identifying function; yet removing any trait from the final version increased beginners’ identification errors. The resulting checklist was therefore _____: none of its features could be omitted without making it less useful.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
- A
parsimonious
- B
indiscriminate
- C
exhaustive
- D
ornate
Step 1
Predict from the clue
The colon after the blank restates it: none of its features could be omitted without making it less useful. The middle sentence shows how the list got that way. First the author removed any trait that duplicated another trait’s identifying function, the redundant ones; then removing any trait from the final version increased beginners’ identification errors. So the list has nothing extra and nothing missing. Predict lean, or nothing wasted.
Step 2
Cross out the lure
Exhaustive, from the a-lot group, tempts most: none of its features could be omitted sounds complete. But exhaustive means covering everything, and the first sentence says the author avoided cataloging every known feature. The list is lean, not all-inclusive, so C goes.
Step 3
Cross out by group and charge
You don't need exact definitions for the next two. Ornate means elaborately decorated: the wrong group, since the clue is about how much the list holds, not how it looks. D goes. Indiscriminate is in- (not) + discriminate, to tell apart: not choosing with care. Its charge is negative, and the text describes an author who chose each trait with care, cutting duplicates, so B goes too.
Step 4
Check the word that’s left
Parsimonious may be new to you. Said of people and money, it usually means stingy, too sparing, a negative word. Said of a list or a method, as here, it means lean: using no more than is needed. So judge a word's charge in its sentence, not from the word alone. A checklist with every duplicate cut and nothing left that could go is exactly that: none of its features could be omitted without making it less useful. Even without knowing the word, you'd have reached it: the other three were out on meaning, group and charge. The answer is A.
- Correct
- The resulting checklist was parsimonious: none of its features could be omitted without making it less useful.
Practice problems
These four questions mix the groups, from medium to hard. Run the routine each time: find the clue, predict, cross out by meaning or by group and charge, then check.
Eighteen interviews
Practice problem
A new oral-history archive documents the redevelopment of Harbor Ward during the 1970s. Only eighteen interviews survive, so researchers caution that the collection cannot offer a statistically representative portrait of the neighborhood. Its value instead comes from being _____: it preserves the accounts of tenants, shopkeepers, architects, and municipal officials, enabling researchers to view the same events from several distinct positions.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
One placard at the entrance
Practice problem
In her catalog essay, the curator acknowledges that wall texts can help visitors orient themselves, but she resisted the temptation to _____ the exhibit with them; instead, she placed a single, spare placard at the entrance and let the objects’ scuffs and repairs suggest their histories.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
Decrees in stone
Practice problem
Surviving records from the kingdom consist largely of royal decrees carved in stone; petitions from ordinary residents, by contrast, were usually written on perishable papyrus. The decrees reliably show what officials wanted, but their numerical preponderance in the archive says little about how often residents challenged those aims. Nevertheless, historians may unconsciously treat the frequency of official claims in the surviving record as evidence that few alternatives circulated. Uneven preservation may therefore _____ the apparent dominance of official perspectives in accounts of the kingdom’s political life.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
An island on many maps
Practice problem
Several sixteenth-century maps depict the same island at nearly identical coordinates, an agreement once taken as evidence that separate navigators had encountered it. However, bibliographer Leona Varga traced a distinctive labeling error across the maps and established that each mapmaker had copied the island from the same earlier chart. The maps’ agreement is therefore _____: it reflects the transmission of a single report, not confirmation by multiple observers.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
Finish the lesson
9 practice examples left
Finish the remaining questions correctly to complete this lesson.
Quick recap
- Place each hard choice by its group (how much, how much it matters, which way it changes, how alike) and its end of the scale.
- Wrong group or wrong end: cross the choice out, even when you can't define it.
- Judge charge in the sentence: a neutral word leans on its end of the scale, and negligible or parsimonious takes its charge from what it describes.
- Look-alikes: negligible isn't negligent, supplement isn't supplant, and disparate isn't disparage; moderate and eclipse also work as verbs.
- Every question: find the clue and its signal, predict, cross out by meaning or by group and charge, then check that the text shows exactly that.
Related
For the rest of this group's words and a free quiz, see amount, degree and difference on the SAT vocabulary words page.
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