Vocab practice · 1 of 3
The reporter was skeptical of the miracle diet, since its only evidence was one happy customer.
Which meaning fits?
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Estimated time
- 35 minutes
- Practice
- Words in Context question bank
What you’ll learn
- Predict the blank from the clue, then use each hard word's meaning, or at least its group and charge, to cross out.
- Tell doubting, open and hopeful words apart: skeptical, receptive, sanguine.
- Keep three ways of taking no side straight: ambivalent, indifferent, impartial.
- Sort words for liking and scorn, and for careful or careless work, by their charge.
- See when holding back or standing firm is praised and when it's blamed.
Why this matters on the SAT
Words for how people think, feel and work
Many SAT texts describe people and how they think, feel and work: a scientist's doubt, a planner's mixed feelings, a critic's scorn, the care that went into a report. So the hard words in the choices are often words for attitude and character.
About three in ten words in context questions turn on knowing a hard word, and since the SAT rarely uses the same one twice, this lesson teaches groups of words that share a meaning, each word with its charge. A word's group and charge are often enough to cross it out, even when you couldn't define it exactly.
Solution to the example
Clue: the colon. Every artifact is traced to a shipping record, and uncertain dates are flagged rather than guessed.
Predict: very careful, a positive word.
Cross out by group and charge: perfunctory (A) and haphazard (B) are negative words for how work is done, so they go by charge alone; speculative (C), based on guesses, clashes with rather than guessed.
Check: meticulous means careful about every detail, so the answer is D.
A tempts most: perfunctory (done as a routine, with little care) echoes effortless, but effortless describes the lecture, the side “Although” turns away from.
SAT example
Although the museum curator’s public lecture sounded effortless, the exhibition catalog reveals weeks of ______ preparation: every artifact is traced to a shipping record, and uncertain dates are clearly flagged rather than guessed.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
- A
perfunctory
- B
haphazard
- C
speculative
- D
meticulous
Cross out by meaning, or by group and charge
Every word in this lesson belongs to a group of words that share a meaning, and has a charge: positive, negative or neutral. If the clue praises someone's work, a negative word for careless work goes, whatever its exact meaning, and so does a word from a group the text isn't about. So the routine from the first lesson gets one move 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: by meaning when you know the word, by group and charge when you only half know it.
- Check the choice that's left: does the text show exactly this?
Each section that follows gives one group in a table, then a sentence for each word, labeled with its charge: the word is in bold, and the clue that shows its meaning is underlined.
Doubting, open or hopeful: how someone meets an idea
The first group describes how someone meets an idea or a plan: with doubt, with an open mind, or with hope.
| Word | Means | Charge |
|---|---|---|
| skeptical | doubting; not easily convinced | negative |
| receptive | open to new ideas and willing to take them in | positive |
| sanguine | hopeful and confident about how things will turn out | positive |
- Note: Negative
- The inspectors stayed skeptical of the builder's promise, since his last three projects had opened years late.
- Note: Positive
- The new manager was receptive to the staff's ideas: she listened to every proposal and adopted two of them within a week.
- Note: Positive
- Despite the dry spring, the farmers remained sanguine, sure that the summer rains would save the harvest.
Skeptical is negative toward the idea, not an insult to the person: a skeptical scientist is doing the job well. Sanguine comes from blood, but it's positive. Its Latin source means blood, which people once believed made them cheerful. Its charge can still turn against it: overly sanguine means too hopeful.
Pick each word's meaning from the clue in its sentence.
Try this question: predict from the clue, then cross out each choice by its meaning or its charge.
Practice problems
Feedback at practice
Practice problem
During the training sessions, the coach appreciated the athletes’ ______ approach to feedback: they listened carefully and adjusted their techniques immediately, avoiding defensiveness or excuses.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
Torn, uncaring or fair: three ways to take no side
Three words describe someone who doesn't come down on one side, each for a different reason. They're often confused, and a question can offer one where the text needs another, so keep them apart.
| Word | Means | Charge |
|---|---|---|
| ambivalent | having mixed feelings, pulled both ways at once | neutral |
| indifferent | not caring either way | negative |
| impartial | fair, favoring no side | positive |
- Note: Neutral
- Nadia felt ambivalent about the move: she wanted the bigger job but dreaded leaving her friends.
- Note: Negative
- The cat was indifferent to the new toy: it sniffed it once and went back to sleep.
- Note: Positive
- The referee stayed impartial, calling fouls on both teams by the same rule.
The ambivalent person feels both ways, the indifferent one feels nothing, and the impartial one cares about being fair. So a writer torn between a plan's gains and its harms is ambivalent, never indifferent: being torn takes caring. In older writing, indifferent can mean impartial, but today it usually means not caring.
Pick each word's meaning from the clue in its sentence.
Vocab practice · 1 of 3
Leo was ambivalent about the trip, excited to see Rome but nervous about flying alone.
Which meaning fits?
In this question, decide which of the three ways of taking no side the clue shows.
Practice problems
Two sides of redevelopment
Practice problem
In her 2021 essays, urban planner Lila Cho expresses her _____ large-scale redevelopment projects, acknowledging their potential to expand housing while stressing their tendency to displace long-term residents and erase neighborhood identities.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
Liking, respect and scorn: how people feel about each other and their work
These words name how someone feels about a person or a piece of work, and their charge is usually plain: liking and respect are positive, hostility and belittling are negative. So when the clue shows whether the feeling is warm or cold, the charge alone can cross out the choices that feel the other way. On the SAT, these words often turn up as wrong choices in texts that aren't about feelings at all; when the text isn't about how someone regards a person or a piece of work, they go by group.
| Word | Means | Charge |
|---|---|---|
| affinity | a natural liking for, or attraction to, something | positive |
| esteem | high regard, respect | positive |
| animosity | strong hostility, ill will | negative |
| antagonistic | actively opposed, hostile | negative |
| disparage | to belittle; to speak of as unimportant or inferior | negative |
| denigrate | to attack the reputation of; to belittle unfairly | negative |
- Note: Positive
- Even as a child, Rosa had an affinity for machines: she took apart every clock in the house to see how it worked.
- Note: Positive
- The old teacher was held in such esteem that half the town came to her retirement party.
- Note: Negative
- The two rival bakers felt real animosity: they hadn't spoken in ten years.
- Note: Negative
- The council was antagonistic to the plan, voting down every version of it.
- Note: Negative
- The critic disparaged the novel, calling it a pile of clichés.
- Note: Negative
- The rumor was meant to denigrate the mayor, painting her as dishonest without any proof.
Disparage has a look-alike, disparate, with a different meaning. Disparage means belittle; disparate means very different. Esteem comes from the same Latin verb as estimate, to value: to esteem someone is to value them highly.
Pick each word's meaning from the clue in its sentence.
Vocab practice · 1 of 3
Mara has an affinity for old maps: she spends whole weekends in the library’s map room.
Which meaning fits?
Careful, careless or forced: words that judge the work
These words judge the work itself: how much care went into it, and whether it feels natural. Only one of them is positive. So when the clue praises the effort, meticulous is the word to look for; when it faults the work, ask what the fault is: too little care, no plan, no aim, or effort that shows too much.
| Word | Means | Charge |
|---|---|---|
| meticulous | very careful about every detail | positive |
| perfunctory | done as a routine duty, with little care or interest | negative |
| haphazard | random, without plan or order | negative |
| desultory | aimless, skipping from one thing to another | negative |
| contrived | forced and artificial, not natural | negative |
- Note: Positive
- The restorer was meticulous, cleaning the painting one square centimeter at a time.
- Note: Negative
- The guard gave our bags a perfunctory check, glancing inside without touching anything.
- Note: Negative
- The books were shelved in a haphazard way, with no order by author, title or subject.
- Note: Negative
- Their desultory conversation drifted from the weather to football to a cousin's wedding without settling anywhere.
- Note: Negative
- The film's happy ending felt contrived: a long-lost uncle appeared out of nowhere with the money they needed.
Perfunctory doesn't look or sound negative, but it is. It comes from a Latin verb for getting through a duty, built on the same verb as function, and it describes work done only to get it over with. Desultory has a look-alike too: dilatory means slow or causing delay. And the verb contrive (to devise or plan) is neutral, but a plot or a smile called contrived is forced.
Pick each word's meaning from the clue in its sentence.
Vocab practice · 1 of 3
The doctor gave a perfunctory nod to my questions and was out the door in two minutes.
Which meaning fits?
In this question, a negation turns the blank around: get the idea from the clue, flip it, then cross out by meaning and charge.
Practice problems
A slow grant review
Practice problem
Although the director promised a quick approval process, the committee’s review of the grant applications was anything but _____. Members convened for three additional meetings and requested detailed budget revisions from every finalist.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
Holding back: restraint, reserve and discretion
These words describe someone or something that holds back: feelings, opinions or attention. The behavior is much the same in each, so the charge tells you whether the text admires the holding back or regrets it.
| Word | Means | Charge |
|---|---|---|
| reserved | slow to show feelings or give opinions | neutral |
| restraint, restrained | holding back by choice; not overdone | positive |
| discretion | good judgment about what to say and what to keep private | positive |
| inhibited | held back by self-consciousness, unable to act freely | negative |
| unobtrusive | not drawing attention; blending in | positive |
- Note: Neutral
- Grandpa was reserved with strangers, answering their questions politely but saying little about himself.
- Note: Positive
- The pianist played the slow movement with restraint, saving the loudest notes for the very end.
- Note: Positive
- The nurse showed discretion, discussing the patient's illness only with the family.
- Note: Negative
- Tom felt inhibited in class, so worried about sounding foolish that he never raised his hand.
- Note: Positive
- The new streetlights are unobtrusive: most people walk past them without seeing that anything has changed.
The same holding back can be praised or blamed. Restraint is chosen and admired; an inhibited person can't help holding back. Holding back feeling isn't having none, either: a restrained performance still moves you, while a detached one doesn't care.
Discretion has a second meaning, the freedom to decide, as in at the judge's discretion. And unobtrusive is un- + obtrusive (pushing itself forward), the “not” prefix from the lesson on word parts.
Pick each word's meaning from the clue in its sentence.
Vocab practice · 1 of 3
The chef used salt with restraint, adding just enough to bring out the tomatoes’ sweetness.
Which meaning fits?
In this question, decide whether the text shows someone holding back or rejecting.
Practice problems
A new irrigation method
Practice problem
Although preliminary reports described a new irrigation method as transformative, agronomist Priya Shah was ______ in her evaluation. She acknowledged that crop yields increased during the two-year trial, but she noted that unusually wet weather might have contributed to the increase and that the method had not yet been tested during a drought.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
Standing firm: determined, stubborn or quick to recover
These words describe someone or something that doesn't give way, or doesn't stay down, under pressure, under orders or under strain. Most of them are positive. Recalcitrant is negative, and defiant is neutral: whether resisting is admirable depends on what's being resisted.
| Word | Means | Charge |
|---|---|---|
| resolute | firmly determined | positive |
| decisive | quick to make firm choices | positive |
| resilient | springing back; recovering quickly from difficulty | positive |
| recalcitrant | stubbornly refusing to be controlled; hard to deal with | negative |
| defiant | openly resisting authority | neutral |
- Note: Positive
- The climbers were resolute: after two failed attempts, they set out for the summit a third time.
- Note: Positive
- The coach was decisive, switching goalkeepers within seconds of the injury.
- Note: Positive
- The town proved resilient, reopening its shops within a month of the flood.
- Note: Negative
- The recalcitrant mule refused to cross the bridge no matter how hard the farmer pulled.
- Note: Neutral
- The students were defiant, wearing the banned buttons to school the next day.
Two words can name the same firmness with opposite charges. A resolute person refuses to give up, and the text admires it; a recalcitrant one refuses to cooperate, and the text doesn't.
Recalcitrant comes from the Latin for kicking back with the heels, and it also describes things that resist, like a stain that won't wash out. Resilient isn't rigid: a rigid thing doesn't bend, while a resilient one bends and springs back. And decisive can also describe evidence that settles a question; here it describes a person.
Pick each word's meaning from the clue in its sentence.
Vocab practice · 1 of 3
Though the river rose all night, the volunteers stayed resolute, stacking sandbags until dawn.
Which meaning fits?
Example: two words that look alike
In this question, two choices look almost the same, and the other two can go first, one by its group and one by its meaning.
Worked example
In traditional quest tales, the hero’s unexpected encounters on the road typically function as tests that clarify the hero’s values and propel the journey forward. In this novel, by contrast, the roadside episodes are ______, appearing and vanishing without meaningfully changing the hero or even delaying the story’s final confrontation.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
- A
dilatory
- B
deferential
- C
didactic
- D
desultory
Step 1
Find the clue and predict
“By contrast” sets the novel's roadside episodes against the traditional ones, which function as tests that clarify the hero’s values and propel the journey forward. The words after the blank say what the novel's episodes do instead: they keep appearing and vanishing without meaningfully changing the hero, or even delaying the story’s final confrontation. They lead nowhere. Predict aimless.
Step 2
Cross out by group and by meaning
Two choices can go first. Deferential means respectful, yielding to someone else's judgment: it describes how a person treats people, not what story episodes do, so B goes.
Didactic means meant to teach a lesson. That describes the traditional encounters, which function as tests that clarify the hero’s values and propel the journey forward, the side “by contrast” turns away from. C goes too.
Step 3
Cross out the look-alike by meaning
Dilatory and desultory look alike, and both are negative, so the charge can't decide between them. Their meanings can. Dilatory means slow or causing delay. A tempts most, because it looks like desultory, and episodes that wander might seem to slow a story down. But the text rules delay out: the episodes pass without changing the hero or even delaying the story’s final confrontation. A goes.
Step 4
Check the last choice
Desultory means aimless, skipping from one thing to another; it comes from the Latin word for a circus rider who leapt from horse to horse. Episodes appearing and vanishing without meaningfully changing the hero: the text shows exactly this. The answer is D.
- Correct
- In this novel, by contrast, the roadside episodes are desultory, appearing and vanishing without meaningfully changing the hero.
Example: fair, not vague
In this question, the outcome pulls you toward a word for hedging, but the clue is about fairness.
Worked example
The following text is adapted from a contemporary article about environmental policy.
City officials expected that Dr. Lin’s lack of prior ties to either shipping companies or fishing cooperatives would lend credibility to her review of two conflicting studies. Her _____ report nevertheless satisfied neither group: it rejected the companies’ claim that dredging had no measurable effect on seagrass, but it also found that the cooperatives had attributed damage from unusually warm water entirely to harbor traffic.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
- A
equivocal
- B
impartial
- C
adversarial
- D
speculative
Step 1
Find the clue and predict
Officials expected Dr. Lin's lack of prior ties to either shipping companies or fishing cooperatives to make her review believable: she had no side to favor. Her report nevertheless satisfied neither group, and “nevertheless” says the blank is something that should have won people over. Predict fair, favoring neither side.
Step 2
Cross out by group and charge
Your prediction is positive, and it's about fairness. Adversarial means hostile, opposed: a negative word, and a hostile report would be expected to anger people, so “nevertheless” would make no sense. C goes.
Speculative means based on guesses, a word for how well a claim is supported, not for fairness. And the colon shows a report that reached findings: it rejected the companies’ claim, and it also found that the cooperatives had attributed damage from unusually warm water entirely to harbor traffic. D goes too.
Step 3
Cross out the lure by meaning
A tempts most. A report that pleases neither side sounds like one that hedged, and equivocal means open to more than one reading, unclear. But this report took clear positions: it rejected the companies’ claim and found a flaw in the cooperatives' claim too. Taking no side in a dispute isn't the same as saying nothing clear. A goes.
Step 4
Check the last choice
Impartial means fair, favoring no side, which is what her lack of prior ties to either shipping companies or fishing cooperatives promised. Of the three ways to take no side, it's the only one that fits: Lin wasn't torn or uncaring; she judged both studies on their evidence. The text shows exactly this. The answer is B.
- Correct
- With no ties to either side, Dr. Lin wrote an impartial report that faulted both.
Practice problems
These four questions mix the groups, and none of them tells you which group it draws on. So start with the clue and a prediction, then use each word's meaning, or at least its group and charge.
A new park
Practice problem
After months of thoughtful debate, the city council reached a _____ decision, approving the new park unanimously and without reservation.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
Young sea turtles
Practice problem
Marine biologists long assumed that juvenile sea turtles drifted wherever ocean currents carried them, making their early movements seem ______. But by analyzing years of satellite-tag data, researchers found that the turtles repeatedly seek out the same warm-water eddies, suggesting a deliberate strategy.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A museum on the move
Practice problem
Advocating for the museum’s relocation, the director emphasized that increased attendance would quickly offset the initial costs. Critics, however, called this projection overly ______, noting that the financial model extrapolated from an atypically busy season and ignored attendance declines at comparable institutions.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
A plastic that won’t break down
Practice problem
In designing a route to recycle mixed plastic waste, chemist Lina Patel tested a catalyst that readily broke down polystyrene and PET into reusable building blocks. Polyethylene behaved differently: increasing the temperature or the catalyst concentration caused some of its molecular chains to begin breaking, but the reaction soon stalled in every trial, leaving nearly all the polymer unchanged. This pattern of limited initial reaction followed by repeated failure to achieve sustained breakdown showed that polyethylene was ______.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
Finish the lesson
8 practice examples left
Finish the remaining questions correctly to complete this lesson.
Quick recap
- Predict first: the clue gives the meaning, and the hard words only have to match it.
- Group and charge: a word's group and its charge can rule it out even when you can't define it exactly.
- Three ways to take no side: ambivalent feels both ways, indifferent doesn't care, impartial is fair.
- The same behavior can carry either charge: restraint and inhibited, resolute and recalcitrant.
- Every hard choice: predict from the clue, cross out by meaning or by group and charge, then check the word that's left.
Related
For the rest of this group's words and a free quiz, study the attitude and character words on the SAT vocabulary page.
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