300 SAT Vocabulary Words Worth Learning

The digital SAT does not test vocabulary the way the old test did. There are no sentence completions, no lists of rare words, and no reward for knowing what “pulchritude” means. What the test does, over and over, is hand you a short passage and ask which word fits it most precisely. That is a vocabulary test in disguise, and it rewards a specific kind of knowledge: a solid grip on the few hundred academic words that carry the meaning in real writing about science, history, art, and society.

This is our list of those words. There are 300 of them, chosen for how often they decide the meaning of a passage rather than for how impressive they sound. They are grouped into ten themed decks so related words get learned together and kept apart, and every word comes with a plain meaning and a sentence that shows the meaning at work. Below the list is the study method we recommend, the waterfall, which puts your time exactly where your gaps are.

How the digital SAT actually tests vocabulary

Vocabulary on the current test lives inside the Reading and Writing section, mostly in a question type College Board calls Words in Context. Those questions sit in the Craft and Structure group, which is about 28 percent of the section, roughly 13 to 15 questions across the two modules. That makes precise vocabulary one of the biggest single levers in Reading and Writing.

The questions come in two shapes:

1. Fill the blank. A short passage has one word missing, and the question asks which choice “completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase.” All four choices are usually real words a student half-knows. The passage’s clues decide between them, so you need shades of meaning, not one-word synonyms.
2. Meaning in context. The passage uses a word, and the question asks what it “most nearly means” as used there. Often it is an ordinary word in a less ordinary sense: “novel” meaning new, “qualify” meaning to limit a claim, “compact” meaning an agreement.

Three things follow from that. Learn words as shades of meaning, with the nearby words they get confused with. Learn them inside sentences, because context is the whole game. And learn the second meanings of common words, because those are the traps the test writers reach for first. The list below is built around all three.

The 300 words

Every word here is a tier-two academic word: not everyday, not obscure, the kind that shows up when a scientist explains a result or a historian weighs a cause. Each word appears once, in the deck where it does the most work. Meanings are written plainly, and every example sentence is built so the meaning can be guessed from the sentence alone, which is exactly the skill the test measures.

Use the search box to check a word, or jump to a deck.

Deck 1Making an argument30 words

Words for claims, evidence, agreement, and pushback. The backbone of every Reading and Writing passage that takes a position.

Word	Part of speech	Meaning	In a sentence
assert	verb	to state something firmly as true, often without proof	Geologists asserted that the canyon formed slowly, stating with confidence that the river had carved it over millions of years.
contend	verb	to argue that something is true, especially when others disagree	Several historians contend that the invention of cheap paper mattered more than the printing press itself, though most scholars disagree.
refute	verb	to prove that a claim or idea is false	A single fossil found in the wrong rock layer can refute a theory that scientists have accepted for decades, proving it wrong.
rebut	verb	to answer an argument with reasons or evidence against it	Standing at the podium, the mayor moved to rebut each charge in the report, answering the accusations with budget records and dates.
corroborate	verb	to support a statement or finding with added evidence	Tree ring data from three separate forests corroborate the ship logs, so the record of the 1815 drought now rests on two independent sources.
substantiate	verb	to back up a claim with evidence or proof	Without receipts or witnesses, the reporter could not substantiate the accusation, and the editor refused to print a story built on rumor alone.
undermine	verb	to weaken something gradually, especially confidence or an argument	One careless error in the data can undermine an entire study, weakening the trust that other researchers place in every remaining result.
bolster	verb	to make an argument or position stronger by adding support	New satellite images bolster the theory that the lake once covered the valley, adding strength to evidence gathered on the ground.
concede	verb	to admit that a point made by an opponent is true	Even the strongest defenders of the plan concede that it will cost more than promised, admitting the point before their critics raise it.
dispute	verb	to argue against the truth or fairness of something	Farmers dispute the new water limits, arguing in public hearings that the state used measurements taken during an unusually dry year.
validate	verb	to confirm that something is true, correct, or worth taking seriously	Researchers at a second laboratory repeated the experiment to validate the findings, confirming that the original numbers were correct.
dismiss	verb	to reject an idea as unimportant or not worth thinking about	Critics were quick to dismiss the young painter's work as clumsy, treating it as unworthy of serious attention until collectors disagreed.
advocate	verb	to speak or write publicly in favor of a plan or idea	Public health officials advocate for wider bike lanes, urging city councils to fund them at every meeting they attend.
allege	verb	to claim that someone did something wrong, before it has been proven	The lawsuit alleges that the factory dumped waste into the creek, a claim the company denies and no court has yet tested.
attest	verb	to provide evidence that something is true	Worn steps and blackened beams attest to the age of the mill, showing that workers climbed them for well over a century.
contradict	verb	to say or show the opposite of what someone else has stated	Witness statements contradict each other, since one places the truck downtown at noon and the other puts it fifty miles away.
discredit	verb	to damage the good name of a person or idea so that others stop trusting it	Rather than answer the study, the industry group tried to discredit its author, hoping readers would stop trusting anything she published.
endorse	verb	to publicly give support or approval to a person, product, or plan	Three former governors endorse the water bill, lending their public approval to a measure that had struggled for years.
justify	verb	to give good reasons that show an action or belief is fair or right	School officials had to justify the new schedule to angry parents, offering test results and bus costs as their reasons.
posit	verb	to put forward an idea as a starting point for discussion	Astronomers posit an unseen planet beyond Neptune, offering the idea as a way to explain the strange orbits of distant icy rocks.
presuppose	verb	to take something for granted as true before making an argument	Plans for a colony on Mars presuppose cheap rockets, taking for granted a drop in launch costs that has not happened yet.
qualify	verb	to add a limit to a statement so that it is less broad or less certain	The scientist chose to qualify her conclusion, adding that the drug helped only patients under forty and only in mild cases.
reconcile	verb	to make two ideas or facts that seem to clash fit together	Physicists still cannot reconcile the rules of gravity with the rules of tiny particles, since the two theories give different answers.
repudiate	verb	to reject something firmly and publicly as wrong or false	In a short letter the composer repudiated the arrangement bearing his name, refusing all connection with a version he called vulgar.
stipulate	verb	to state a requirement clearly as part of an agreement	Grant rules stipulate that all data must be shared within a year, a condition every applicant accepts before the money arrives.
underscore	verb	to draw attention to how important something is	Recent floods underscore the need for stronger levees, drawing fresh attention to warnings that engineers first published twenty years ago.
vindicate	verb	to show that a person or idea was right after doubt or blame	Decades later, careful measurements vindicated the chemist, proving that her rejected claim about the metal's true weight had been correct.
warrant	verb	to give good enough reason for an action	A single odd reading does not warrant shutting down the reactor, though a second one would give the crew reason to act.
invoke	verb	to call on a rule, idea, or authority to support what you say	Lawyers for the town invoke a 1912 statute in their defense, calling on an old law that almost no one remembers.
cite	verb	to name a source or example as support for a point	In her essay she cited three separate studies, naming each source so that readers could check the numbers for themselves.

Deck 2Tone and attitude30 words

How a writer or speaker feels about the subject. These show up whenever a question asks about attitude, purpose, or point of view.

Word	Part of speech	Meaning	In a sentence
skeptical	adjective	not ready to believe something without more proof	Readers stayed skeptical of the diet book's promises, wanting hard evidence before they believed that a single fruit could cure anything.
ambivalent	adjective	having two opposite feelings about something at the same time	She felt ambivalent about the move, thrilled by the new job and sad to leave the town where she grew up.
candid	adjective	honest and open, even when the truth is uncomfortable	In a candid interview the coach admitted his team was outmatched, saying plainly what other coaches would have hidden behind praise.
earnest	adjective	serious and sincere about something, with no joking	His earnest plea for the library moved the council, since everyone could tell he meant every word he said.
indignant	adjective	angry because something seems unfair or wrong	Parents grew indignant when the district cut art classes, and their anger at the unfair decision filled the school board meeting.
wry	adjective	amused in a dry way that shows you notice something odd or unfair	Every chapter ends with a wry observation, gently amused by the small vanities the novelist notices in her neighbors.
reverent	adjective	showing deep respect and a sense of awe	Visitors speak in reverent whispers inside the old cathedral, treating the stone room with the deep respect its builders hoped for.
dismissive	adjective	treating something as not worth any attention	A dismissive wave was the manager's only answer to the safety report, as though the warning deserved no attention at all.
nostalgic	adjective	feeling a fond sadness for a time in the past	Old factory whistles made the retired workers nostalgic, pulling them back to mornings when the whole town walked to the same gate.
pragmatic	adjective	dealing with things in a practical way rather than by theory or ideals	Her pragmatic plan skipped the grand fountain and fixed the leaking pipes first, because the town needed water more than beauty.
cynical	adjective	believing that people act only out of selfishness	A cynical voter assumed the cleanup was staged for cameras, since he believed no politician ever acts without a selfish motive.
apprehensive	adjective	worried that something bad is about to happen	Sailors grew apprehensive as the sky darkened, worried that the storm would reach the harbor before their boats did.
complacent	adjective	so pleased with things as they are that you stop trying	Years of easy profits made the company complacent, and it stopped improving its product until a small rival took half the market.
defiant	adjective	openly refusing to obey or give in	One defiant clerk kept the shop open past curfew, refusing to obey an order she thought the governor had no power to give.
detached	adjective	not showing feeling or personal involvement	Written in a detached voice, the report of the mine collapse listed damages and dates without a hint of the fear workers felt.
disdainful	adjective	showing that you think someone or something is beneath you	The critic was disdainful of pop songs, speaking of them as if they were beneath the notice of serious listeners.
emphatic	adjective	said or done in a strong, forceful way that leaves no doubt	His answer was emphatic: he would not sell the farm, and he repeated it loudly enough for everyone in the room.
exasperated	adjective	very annoyed after trying again and again with no success	Exasperated by the fifth broken printer that week, the clinic receptionist finally lost patience and asked for new machines.
flippant	adjective	not serious about something that deserves respect	One flippant joke about the flood victims cost the announcer his job, since the moment called for care rather than comedy.
guarded	adjective	careful about what you say, giving away little	The senator gave guarded answers to reporters, revealing almost nothing, since every reply was careful and short.
incredulous	adjective	unable to believe what you are seeing or hearing	Fans stood incredulous as the last shot dropped in, unable to believe that a team of freshmen had won the title.
irreverent	adjective	not showing the respect that people expect for serious things	An irreverent cartoonist drew the queen with a mop for a crown, poking fun at traditions most artists treated as sacred.
melancholy	adjective	filled with a quiet, lasting sadness	Slow and melancholy, the tune drifting from the upstairs window carried a quiet sadness through the whole street.
resigned	adjective	accepting something unpleasant because you cannot change it	With a resigned shrug the farmer watched the hail fall, accepting a ruined crop he could do nothing to save.
sardonic	adjective	mocking in a bitter, scornful way	Workers laughed at his sardonic remark that the raise would buy one coffee a month, a joke edged with real bitterness.
sentimental	adjective	showing tender feelings, sometimes more than the moment deserves	My grandmother kept a sentimental box of ticket stubs, saving small worthless scraps only because of the feelings attached to them.
solemn	adjective	serious and grave in a way that fits an important moment	Cadets stood in solemn silence as the flag came down, and no one smiled during the grave and careful ceremony.
tentative	adjective	not certain or final, and open to change	Scientists offered a tentative explanation for the glow, warning that better instruments might change their answer within a year.
wary	adjective	careful because you sense danger or a trick	Hikers stay wary of thin ice in early spring, testing each step because the surface can look solid and still break.
zealous	adjective	full of eager, intense enthusiasm for a cause	Zealous volunteers knocked on every door in the county, giving up weekends and sleep for a cause they burned to support.

Deck 3Change and stability30 words

Things that grow, shrink, hold steady, or fall apart. Science and history passages lean on these constantly.

Word	Part of speech	Meaning	In a sentence
fluctuate	verb	to rise and fall in an irregular way over time	Blood sugar levels fluctuated wildly during the trial, rising after meals and dropping so low at night that nurses grew worried.
transient	adjective	lasting only a short time before passing away	The mining camp was a transient settlement whose residents packed up and left within two years, leaving only chimneys behind.
immutable	adjective	impossible to change in any way	Physicists once treated the speed of light as an immutable limit that no experiment or clever engineering could ever alter.
ephemeral	adjective	existing for only a brief moment before vanishing	Sand paintings made by Tibetan monks are deliberately ephemeral, swept away hours after weeks of careful work.
volatile	adjective	likely to change suddenly and without warning	Coffee prices grew so volatile after the drought that farmers could not guess what a sack would be worth next month.
static	adjective	staying the same, with no movement or change	Wages remained static for a decade even as rent climbed, so families found their paychecks buying less each year.
perennial	adjective	happening again and again, or lasting for many years	Flooding along the lower Mississippi is a perennial problem that returns nearly every spring, no matter how high the levees rise.
erode	verb	to wear away slowly, bit by bit	Years of scandal eroded public trust in the agency until few citizens believed anything its officials announced.
catalyst	noun	a person or event that causes a big change to start	Cheap steel served as the catalyst for skyscrapers, and city skylines changed within a single generation.
inertia	noun	a tendency to keep doing nothing and to resist any change	Committee inertia kept the outdated policy alive for years because nobody wanted the trouble of writing a new one.
dwindle	verb	to become smaller or fewer little by little	The herd of bison dwindled from millions to a few hundred animals in under thirty years of hunting.
surge	verb	to rise or increase suddenly and powerfully	Applications to nursing programs surged after the pandemic, and several colleges doubled the size of their entering classes.
revert	verb	to go back to an earlier state or habit	Once the funding ended, the school reverted to its old schedule and the tutoring blocks disappeared from the calendar.
entrenched	adjective	firmly fixed in place and very hard to change	Segregated housing patterns were so entrenched in the city that new laws barely shifted them for another two decades.
fleeting	adjective	over almost as soon as it begins	A total eclipse gives observers a fleeting three minutes of darkness before the sun returns and the birds resume singing.
dormant	adjective	not active now but able to become active later	Geologists called the volcano dormant for four centuries, until ash suddenly darkened the sky above the valley farms.
resilient	adjective	able to recover quickly after damage or hardship	Prairie grasses proved surprisingly resilient after the fire, sending up green shoots within weeks of the burn.
stagnant	adjective	not flowing or growing, and often stale as a result	Mosquitoes bred in the stagnant pond behind the mill, where no current stirred the water for months.
precarious	adjective	not secure or stable and likely to become worse	After the layoffs, the family's finances grew precarious, and one broken car would have cost them the apartment.
recede	verb	to move back or away from a point reached earlier	As the glacier receded up the valley, it left behind piles of gravel that mapmakers still use as markers.
subside	verb	to become quieter or less strong and settle down	Shouting from the crowd subsided once the mayor stepped to the microphone and promised a full public hearing.
abate	verb	to become less intense or forceful	Only when the winter storm abated could the rescue team push up the ridge toward the stranded climbers.
escalate	verb	to grow quickly into something larger or more serious	A dispute over grazing land escalated into a decade of lawsuits that reached the state supreme court.
oscillate	verb	to swing back and forth between two points or conditions	Public opinion on the treaty oscillated between hope and suspicion as each new round of talks broke down.
persist	verb	to keep going or keep existing despite difficulty	Doubts about the vaccine persisted for years, although large trials showed no link to the illness.
perpetuate	verb	to make something continue, often a belief or problem that should end	Textbooks that skipped the labor strikes perpetuated a myth of easy progress, and students inherited a tidy version of history.
intermittent	adjective	stopping and starting again at uneven times	Intermittent rain fell all afternoon, so the crew painted for twenty minutes, waited, and then painted again.
obsolete	adjective	no longer useful because something newer has replaced it	Cassette decks became obsolete within a few years of the compact disc, and factories that built them closed.
sporadic	adjective	happening only occasionally and in a scattered way	Sporadic gunfire echoed through the hills for weeks, though the two armies never met in a single large battle.
steadfast	adjective	firm and loyal, refusing to give up or change course	Her support for the striking miners stayed steadfast even after the newspapers turned against the union.

Deck 4Amount, degree, and scale30 words

How much, how often, how big. The difference between a wrong answer and a right one is often a matter of degree.

Word	Part of speech	Meaning	In a sentence
negligible	adjective	so small that it is not worth paying attention to	The added weight of the sensor was negligible, so engineers bolted it onto the drone without redesigning the frame.
ubiquitous	adjective	seeming to appear everywhere you look	Plastic bottles have become so ubiquitous that researchers find their fragments in mountain snow and deep ocean trenches.
scarce	adjective	hard to find because very little of it exists	Fresh water grew scarce in the third year of drought, and the town rationed each household to forty gallons a day.
copious	adjective	present or produced in large quantities	Darwin took copious notes on every island, filling dozens of notebooks before he ever wrote a single chapter.
paramount	adjective	more important than anything else	For a surgeon, cleanliness is paramount, and every other concern in the operating room comes second to it.
marginal	adjective	so small in size or importance that it barely matters	The new fertilizer produced only a marginal gain in yield, hardly enough to cover what the farmers paid for it.
prevalent	adjective	common and widespread in a place or group	Rickets was prevalent in industrial cities where coal smoke blocked the sunlight children needed for healthy bones.
sparse	adjective	thinly spread out, with big gaps in between	Vegetation is sparse on the high plateau, where a hiker can walk an hour between one clump of grass and the next.
exhaustive	adjective	complete and thorough, leaving nothing out	Investigators made an exhaustive search of every warehouse, checking each crate twice before they filed the report.
meager	adjective	far too small in amount to be enough	Soldiers survived the winter on meager rations of dried beans, and many lost twenty pounds before spring.
abundant	adjective	present in more than enough supply	Cod were once so abundant off Newfoundland that sailors claimed a lowered basket would come up full.
ample	adjective	enough or more than enough for what is needed	Jurors had ample evidence to convict, including two receipts, a security video, and testimony from the driver.
minute	adjective	extremely small and hard to notice	Under the microscope the biologist spotted minute cracks in the shell that the naked eye would never catch.
modest	adjective	small in size or amount, but not tiny	A modest raise of two percent did little for workers who had waited five years for any increase.
moderate	adjective	not too much and not too little, staying near the middle	Moderate exercise, about thirty minutes of walking a day, lowered blood pressure more reliably than intense workouts did.
substantial	adjective	large enough to be important or to have real weight	A substantial portion of the city budget, nearly a third, went to repairing bridges that had gone unpainted for decades.
excessive	adjective	far more than is needed or reasonable	Excessive noise from the highway made the classrooms unusable, so the district finally paid for thicker windows.
nominal	adjective	existing in name only, or very small in amount	After the revolution the king held nominal power, while the elected assembly made every real decision.
pervasive	adjective	spreading through every part of something	Fear of informers was pervasive in the city, seeping into classrooms, kitchens, and even conversations between old friends.
profuse	adjective	given, produced, or occurring in large amounts	Profuse apologies from the airline did nothing for passengers who had already missed the wedding in Denver.
rampant	adjective	spreading fast and out of control	Counterfeiting was rampant in the port, and inspectors seized fake watches from nearly every container they opened.
scant	adjective	barely enough, or less than expected	Archaeologists found scant trace of the village, just a few postholes and a cracked bowl in one trash pit.
trivial	adjective	of little value or importance, not serious	What looked like a trivial typo in the contract cost the company nine million dollars in a later lawsuit.
vast	adjective	extremely large in size, amount, or range	Herds moved across a vast stretch of grassland that took the wagon train eleven weeks to cross.
considerable	adjective	fairly large in size, amount, or degree	Translating the poem took considerable effort, since the author had buried puns in nearly every line.
disproportionate	adjective	much larger or smaller than is fair or expected	Rural counties received a disproportionate share of the grant money, far more than their small populations would suggest.
incremental	adjective	happening in small steps rather than all at once	Incremental changes to the engine, a gram here and a degree there, added up to noticeably better mileage.
cumulative	adjective	growing larger as each new part is added to what came before	Small daily deposits had a cumulative effect that surprised her, since the account held four thousand dollars by June.
finite	adjective	having a fixed limit that cannot be passed	Oil in any single field is finite, so drillers plan for the day the wells run dry.
myriad	adjective	very many, too many to count	Coral reefs support myriad species, from tiny shrimp to sharks, in a space no larger than a few city blocks.

Deck 5Science and evidence30 words

The vocabulary of studies, experiments, and data. Half the passages on the test describe research, so these pay off fast.

Word	Part of speech	Meaning	In a sentence
empirical	adjective	based on real observation or measurement rather than pure guesswork	Zoning officials rejected the builder's confident claims because he offered no empirical support, only a hunch about how the soil would behave.
hypothesis	noun	an idea offered as a possible explanation, stated so that a test can support or reject it	Marisol's hypothesis was that the pond turtles basked longer on cloudy days, and a week of photographs let her test that guess.
anomaly	noun	something that breaks the usual pattern and does not fit what is expected	Every winter reading fell near thirty degrees except one warm January afternoon, an anomaly the weather station could not explain.
correlate	verb	to have a relationship in which changes in one thing are associated with changes in another	Hours of sleep correlated closely with test scores across the whole senior class, though nobody claimed one thing produced the other.
replicate	verb	to repeat a study or a result exactly enough to see whether it holds up	Two other labs replicated the memory experiment step by step and got the same result, which made the original finding much harder to dismiss.
plausible	adjective	reasonable enough to be believed, though not yet proven	A leaking pipe seemed the most plausible reason for the wet basement wall, so the landlord checked the plumbing before tearing out drywall.
inference	noun	a conclusion reached from evidence rather than from a direct statement	Ash layers and buried seeds led the archaeologists to the inference that the village had burned during a harvest.
phenomenon	noun	an event or condition that can be seen and studied	Sailors described a glowing blue tide for centuries before biologists traced the phenomenon to tiny organisms that flash when the water is disturbed.
variable	noun	a factor in a study that can change and may affect the outcome	To keep the plant trial fair, the only variable Priya changed was the amount of light, since water and soil stayed identical.
robust	adjective	strong enough to hold up under hard testing or rough conditions	Salt spray and two hurricanes left the bridge untouched, proving the design robust enough for the roughest coastal weather.
causal	adjective	having to do with one thing actually producing another	Ice cream sales and drowning both climb in July, but the link is not causal, because hot weather drives each one separately.
criterion	noun	a standard or rule used to judge or decide something	Speed was not the only criterion for the scholarship: the committee also weighed how carefully each swimmer trained through the winter.
benchmark	noun	a fixed point of comparison used to measure how good something is	Engineers treat the 1970 fuel figures as a benchmark, measuring every new engine against that older number.
calibrate	verb	to adjust an instrument so its readings match a known correct value	Before weighing the samples, Ana calibrated the balance with a certified one gram block so every later reading could be trusted.
constraint	noun	a limit that keeps you from doing everything you might want to do	The biggest constraint on the telescope project was money, since the team could afford only one mirror instead of the three they wanted.
deviate	verb	to move away from a set path, plan, or usual pattern	When the pilot deviated from the planned route to avoid a storm cell, the flight arrived forty minutes late.
discrepancy	noun	a difference between two numbers or accounts that should match	Warehouse staff counted ninety boxes while the invoice listed ninety four, and the manager spent an hour chasing that discrepancy.
extrapolate	verb	to use a known trend to estimate what lies beyond the data you have	From ten years of shrinking ice cover, the team extrapolated a summer with open water by 2050, though they warned the estimate was rough.
feasible	adjective	able to be done with the time, money, and tools at hand	Digging a tunnel under the river was not feasible on the town's small budget, so the council chose a ferry instead.
methodology	noun	the set of methods and steps chosen for carrying out a study	Reviewers praised the paper's clear methodology, which described exactly how each bee colony was counted, tagged, and released.
paradigm	noun	the accepted way of thinking that shapes how a whole field works	Plate tectonics became the new paradigm in geology, and within a decade nearly every textbook explained mountains a different way.
preliminary	adjective	coming before the main part, and not yet final	These preliminary numbers cover only the first month of the trial, so the doctors refused to announce anything until the full year ended.
quantify	verb	to measure something and put a number on it	Fear is hard to quantify, so the psychologists tracked heart rate and sweat instead of asking students to rate their nerves.
rigorous	adjective	done with great care and strict attention to every detail	Her training was rigorous: five miles before dawn, a strict diet, and a coach who checked every stride on video.
simulate	verb	to imitate a real process with a model so it can be studied safely	Wave machines simulated ocean currents so closely that the young salmon swam as if they were already heading downstream.
systematic	adjective	done step by step in an orderly plan rather than at random	A systematic search of the forest floor, square meter by square meter, turned up three nests that casual hikers had walked past for years.
theoretical	adjective	based on ideas and reasoning rather than on practice or real cases	For thirty years the particle was purely theoretical, existing only in equations, until a collider finally produced one.
verify	verb	to check that something is true or correct	Bank tellers verify a signature against the card on file before releasing large sums of cash.
yield	verb	to produce or give something as a result	The new wheat strain yielded almost twice as much grain per acre, which changed how the farmers planned their whole season.
baseline	noun	a starting measurement used later for comparison	Nurses recorded each patient's resting pulse as a baseline, then watched how far the numbers moved after the medicine.

Deck 6People and society30 words

Groups, power, money, and belonging. History and social science passages are built from these.

Word	Part of speech	Meaning	In a sentence
egalitarian	adjective	based on the belief that all people deserve equal rights and status	Founders of the farming commune wrote an egalitarian charter: every member, new or old, got one vote and an equal share of the harvest.
autonomy	noun	the freedom to govern yourself and make your own choices	Teachers at the small school enjoy unusual autonomy, choosing their own books and building lessons without waiting for approval from a district office.
consensus	noun	general agreement among the members of a group	Four hours of argument finally produced a consensus, and every juror signed the same verdict form.
hierarchy	noun	a system that ranks people or things by level of power or importance	In the old shipping firm, a strict hierarchy meant a clerk could never speak to the owner without passing through four managers.
marginalize	verb	to push a person or group to the edge of things and treat them as unimportant	Redrawn district lines marginalized the cannery workers, scattering them across five districts so their votes never added up to much.
constituent	noun	a person who lives in an area and is represented by an elected official	A farmer drove three hours to the town hall as an angry constituent, demanding that his senator explain the new water rules.
altruistic	adjective	acting for the good of others without wanting a reward	Donating a kidney to a stranger struck the nurses as purely altruistic, since she refused even to learn the man's name.
conformity	noun	behavior that matches what a group expects, instead of standing apart	Matching uniforms, identical lunch trays, and silent hallways all pressed the students toward conformity.
dissent	noun	open disagreement with an official opinion or decision	One justice wrote a sharp dissent, arguing that the majority had ignored a century of settled law.
affluent	adjective	having plenty of money and property	Broad lawns, three car garages, and a private lake marked the neighborhood as the most affluent in the county.
bureaucracy	noun	a large system of officials and rules that runs an organization, often slowly	Getting a single permit meant six forms, four offices, and a two month wait, a bureaucracy that exhausted most small shop owners.
coalition	noun	a group of parties or people who join forces for a shared goal	Farmers, teachers, and truck drivers formed an unlikely coalition to block the highway plan, and together they had enough votes to win.
collective	adjective	done, shared, or decided by people acting as a group	Villagers made a collective decision to repair the seawall, with every household giving either money or a day of labor.
communal	adjective	shared by everyone in a community rather than owned privately	Every family in the settlement drew water from one communal well and baked bread in a shared stone oven.
demographic	adjective	having to do with the makeup of a population, such as age, income, or where people live	A sharp demographic shift filled the small town with young families, and the school board scrambled to add three kindergarten classrooms.
disparity	noun	a large and often unfair difference between two groups or amounts	Pay disparity at the plant was stark: managers earned in one week what the packing crew took home in two months.
enfranchise	verb	to give someone the legal right to vote	The 1920 amendment enfranchised millions of women, and turnout in the next election climbed sharply across the country.
exploit	verb	to use a person or resource unfairly for your own gain	Mill owners exploited the young workers, paying pennies for twelve hour shifts and firing anyone who complained about the machines.
indigenous	adjective	native to a place, living there long before newcomers arrived	Curators returned the carved masks to the indigenous nation whose ancestors had made them along that river for centuries.
infrastructure	noun	the basic roads, pipes, wires, and systems a place needs to work	After the flood, the city rebuilt its infrastructure first, laying fresh water mains and repaving eleven miles of road before anything else.
mandate	noun	an official order, or the authority voters give a leader to act	Winning sixty percent of the vote gave the governor a clear mandate to push her tax plan through the legislature.
norm	noun	a standard of behavior that a group treats as usual and expected	Removing your shoes at the door is a firm norm in his family, and guests who forget are gently reminded.
orthodox	adjective	following the usual accepted beliefs or long established practice	Her orthodox teaching methods, drills and memorization and daily quizzes, looked old fashioned beside the project rooms down the hall.
partisan	adjective	strongly loyal to one party or side, often blindly	Debate on the bill turned so partisan that members voted with their own party on every measure, even ones they had written together.
philanthropic	adjective	generous in giving money or effort to help other people	Money from a philanthropic shoe maker paid for the town's first library and stocked it with ten thousand books.
provincial	adjective	narrow in outlook, knowing little beyond your own small corner of the world	He called their tastes provincial, since nobody at the table had ever eaten a meal from outside the valley.
sovereignty	noun	the full power of a nation or people to rule themselves	The treaty recognized the island's sovereignty, so its people could write their own laws without approval from the mainland.
subsidize	verb	to pay part of the cost of something so it stays cheap for others	State lawmakers subsidized bus fares for students, cutting the price to a quarter and doubling ridership within a year.
secular	adjective	not connected to religion or a church	France built a secular school system where no prayers were said and no religious symbols hung on the classroom walls.
solidarity	noun	unity and support among people who share a cause or a struggle	Dockworkers in three cities refused to unload the ship, an act of solidarity with the striking crew that cost each of them a week's pay.

Deck 7Art, writing, and ideas30 words

How literature, art, and argument are built and described. Essential for passages about books, paintings, and performances.

Word	Part of speech	Meaning	In a sentence
aesthetic	adjective	concerned with beauty or with how something looks, sounds, or feels	Bare concrete walls and one high skylight were an aesthetic choice, meant to make each sculpture look striking rather than to save money.
nuance	noun	a small difference in meaning, feeling, or color that is easy to miss	Translators disagree about one nuance in the old letter, because its verb can suggest either patient waiting or quiet dread.
convention	noun	an accepted way of doing something that most people in a group follow	Breaking with the convention that novels end neatly, the author closes the last chapter in the middle of an argument.
motif	noun	an image, idea, or sound that comes back again and again in a work	Locked doors form a motif in the novel, appearing in nearly every chapter whenever a character hides something from her family.
allusion	noun	a brief, indirect mention of another work, person, or event	One line in the poem makes an allusion to a Greek myth, so readers who know the story expect a sad ending.
juxtapose	verb	to place two things side by side so their differences stand out	Chapter three juxtaposes a warm family kitchen with the freezing street outside, so readers cannot miss the gap between them.
satirical	adjective	using humor or exaggeration to attack a foolish or corrupt practice	Magazine editors ran a satirical cartoon of the mayor asleep at his desk while the city's wells ran dry.
ambiguous	adjective	open to more than one meaning, so the sense is unclear	One ambiguous sentence in the will sent the family to court, because it could name either brother as the owner.
evocative	adjective	bringing strong pictures, memories, or feelings to mind	A single evocative paragraph about wet pavement and bus exhaust put readers back in the city where they grew up.
didactic	adjective	meant to teach a lesson, often in a heavy or preachy way	Victorian children's books were openly didactic, ending each tale with a moral that told young readers exactly how to behave.
abstract	adjective	dealing with general ideas rather than solid objects or real events	Freedom stays too abstract for the essay until the writer describes a single family waiting years for a passport.
anecdote	noun	a short account of an interesting or amusing event, often used to illustrate a point	Before the data, the economist opened with an anecdote about her grandmother trading eggs for shoes during a bad winter.
archetype	noun	an original model or typical example that later versions copy	The lonely detective who trusts nobody has become an archetype, repeated in hundreds of crime novels since the 1930s.
caricature	noun	a picture or description that exaggerates features to make someone look silly	Critics complained that the villain was a caricature, a greedy landlord with no feeling other than a love of money.
cliché	noun	a phrase or idea used so often that it has lost its force	Graduation speakers repeat the same cliché about doors closing and windows opening, and by now the audience stops listening.
depict	verb	to show or describe something in a picture or in words	The mural depicts workers laying track across the desert, their faces turned away from a sun the artist painted white.
embellish	verb	to add details or decoration, sometimes ones that are not true	Each time he told the fishing story, my uncle embellished it, until the trout had grown longer than his arm.
genre	noun	a category of art or writing marked by a shared style or subject	Science fiction was long treated as a lesser genre, until universities began teaching its novels beside classic literature.
homage	noun	an act or work that shows deep respect for a person or an earlier creation	Filming the opening in black and white was an homage to silent movies, complete with title cards and a jerky camera.
ironic	adjective	meaning the opposite of what the words say, or opposite to what is expected	It was ironic that the fire station burned down while its crew was away teaching a class on fire safety.
lyrical	adjective	expressing feeling in a musical, songlike way	Her nature writing turns lyrical in the final chapter, where short sentences about ice and light almost sound like a song.
narrative	noun	an account of connected events, or the way a story is told	Court records let the historian build a narrative of the strike, from the first walkout to the signed agreement nine weeks later.
parody	noun	a funny imitation of a work or style that copies it in order to mock it	Students filmed a parody of the school's safety video, keeping the cheerful music while the actors tripped over every cone.
poignant	adjective	causing a sharp feeling of sadness or tenderness	Nothing in the show is more poignant than the photograph of an empty kitchen table set for a soldier who never returned.
prose	noun	ordinary written language, without the line breaks or meter of poetry	Plain, unhurried prose carries the whole chapter, with each paragraph explaining a single step before the next one begins.
rhetoric	noun	the art of using language to persuade an audience	Ancient students studied rhetoric for years, learning how word order and repetition could move a crowd of listeners toward a decision.
subtle	adjective	so slight or delicate that it is hard to notice	A subtle change in the light tells you the painting was finished at dusk, though nothing in it shows the sky.
thematic	adjective	having to do with the main idea or subject of a work	Reviewers noted the thematic link between the two plays, since both ask whether a person can outrun a family debt.
vivid	adjective	producing clear, bright, and strong pictures in the mind	Sailors kept vivid journals of the storm, describing green water on deck and a sky the color of an old coin.
whimsical	adjective	playful and odd in a light, unexpected way	Curling staircases and doorknobs shaped like birds give the small library a whimsical charm that children love.

Deck 8Thinking and judgment30 words

Words for reasoning, believing, doubting, and deciding. The test loves to ask what a writer assumes or concludes.

Word	Part of speech	Meaning	In a sentence
discern	verb	to notice or understand something that is not easy to see	Only after cleaning the coin could the archaeologist discern a faint date beneath the crust of green corrosion.
scrutinize	verb	to look at something very closely and carefully	Auditors scrutinized every receipt from the campaign and found four payments that no one could explain.
presume	verb	to suppose something is true without proof	Because the lights were off, the mail carrier presumed the family had left town, though they were asleep upstairs.
speculate	verb	to guess about something without enough facts to be sure	Astronomers speculated that a hidden planet tugged at the comet, but no telescope has found any object out there.
deduce	verb	to reach an answer by reasoning from facts you already have	From the muddy tracks and a broken latch, the ranger deduced that a bear had opened the trash bin overnight.
infer	verb	to reach a conclusion from clues rather than direct statements	Readers can infer from the narrator's shaking hands that she is frightened, even though the story never says so.
conjecture	noun	a guess based on incomplete evidence	Whether the temple served as a granary is still conjecture, since no grain or storage jars have appeared at the site.
dubious	adjective	full of doubt, or not likely to be true	Doctors were dubious about the pill's claim to cure baldness, because the company's only test used twelve people.
cogent	adjective	clear and convincing, so the point is hard to argue with	She made a cogent case for the bike lane, listing crash data, costs, and three cities where the plan worked.
fallacy	noun	a mistake in reasoning that makes an argument fail	Assuming that rain follows a car wash is a common fallacy, since two events can line up without one causing the other.
assess	verb	to judge the amount, value, or quality of something	Engineers assessed the bridge after the flood, testing each support before they allowed trucks to cross again.
astute	adjective	showing sharp judgment and a good sense of what will work	An astute coach saw that the other team tired after halftime and saved her fastest runners for the final quarter.
bias	noun	an unfair leaning toward or against a person, group, or idea	The study showed a clear bias, since researchers interviewed only families who already supported the new highway.
coherent	adjective	clear and logical, with parts that fit together well	His notes were a pile of scraps, so turning them into a coherent report took an entire weekend.
conceive	verb	to form an idea or a plan in the mind	Two brothers conceived the tunnel plan in 1802, long before any machine could dig through that much wet clay.
contemplate	verb	to think about something carefully for a long time	For an hour she sat by the window and contemplated whether to accept a job in a city she had never seen.
credible	adjective	believable enough to be trusted	Investigators found one credible account, because that witness described marks on the guardrail that matched the truck exactly.
deliberate	adjective	done on purpose after thinking, not by accident	The smudge was deliberate, the curator explained, because the painter wanted the child's face to look blurred by motion.
elucidate	verb	to make something clear by explaining it	A single diagram elucidated the water cycle better than three pages of text, and the class finally understood it.
gauge	verb	to measure or judge the size, strength, or worth of something	Before raising prices, the bakery owner tried to gauge how much loyal customers would pay for the same loaf.
insight	noun	a clear, deep understanding of how something really works	Her key insight was that birds sing earlier in noisy neighborhoods, which showed that traffic was reshaping their daily routines.
lucid	adjective	easy to follow because it is expressed so clearly	Using a bedsheet and a marble, the physicist gave a lucid explanation of black holes that even beginners could follow.
objective	adjective	based on facts rather than on personal feelings	A referee must stay objective, calling the same foul whether the home team or the visitors commit it.
perceptive	adjective	quick to notice small details and grasp what they mean	One perceptive editor spotted that two chapters contradicted each other, a problem four earlier readers had missed completely.
premise	noun	an idea taken as true that an argument is built on	Every part of the plan rests on the premise that rain returns by June, and a dry June would ruin it.
rational	adjective	based on clear thinking and good reasons	Selling the car looked cold, but it was the rational choice once he compared repair bills with the bus fare.
shrewd	adjective	clever at judging a situation and using it to gain an advantage	Buying empty warehouses near the planned port was a shrewd move, and the trader tripled her money in two years.
subjective	adjective	based on personal feelings or opinions rather than outside facts	Taste in music is subjective, so a song that thrills one listener can bore the person sitting beside her.
tenable	adjective	able to be defended against attack or objection	After the fossil was dated, the old theory was no longer tenable, and even its supporters dropped it within a year.
prudent	adjective	careful and sensible about avoiding needless risk	Keeping three months of pay in savings is a prudent habit, since a broken furnace never arrives at a convenient time.

Deck 9Describing things precisely30 words

Adjectives that pin down exactly what something is like. Words in Context questions hinge on these fine distinctions.

Word	Part of speech	Meaning	In a sentence
intricate	adjective	having many small parts fitted together in a complicated way	Each intricate gear in the pocket watch had to be filed by hand, and a single wrong tooth stopped the whole mechanism.
rudimentary	adjective	basic and undeveloped, at only an early stage	Early bicycles had rudimentary brakes, so a rider slowed down by pressing a metal bar straight against the spinning tire.
ornate	adjective	covered with heavy, showy decoration and fine detail	Gold leaf, carved vines, and painted cherubs covered the ornate ceiling of the old theater, drawing every eye upward before the show.
austere	adjective	plain and bare, with no comfort or decoration	Inside the monastery, the austere dining hall held one long table, plain benches, and a bare window with no curtain.
arbitrary	adjective	based on personal choice or an irrelevant reason rather than a fair or logical basis	Grouping students by the first letter of their last name is arbitrary, because the alphabet says nothing about how anyone learns.
tangible	adjective	real enough to be touched or clearly seen	Fossils give paleontologists tangible proof of ancient life, unlike theories that exist only in equations and long arguments.
obscure	adjective	not known by many people, or hard to make sense of	For decades the poet lived in an obscure mountain village, and fewer than a hundred readers had ever seen her work.
explicit	adjective	stated fully and clearly, leaving no room for doubt	Her lease was explicit about pets, naming the exact weight limit, the extra deposit, and the two breeds not allowed.
implicit	adjective	suggested without being stated directly	Although the essay never praises the mayor outright, its warm tone carries an implicit approval of every choice he made.
salient	adjective	most noticeable or most important in a situation	One salient detail stands out on the new map: a thick red line marking where the river used to run.
adjacent	adjective	lying right next to something	Workers built the new museum wing on the lot adjacent to the old library, so visitors walk between them in a minute.
analogous	adjective	alike in a way that lets one thing explain another	Biologists call the wing of a bat analogous to the wing of a bee, since both structures solve flight in different ways.
coarse	adjective	rough to the touch, made of large or thick pieces	Below the cliffs the sand turns coarse and scratches bare feet, while the beach farther south stays soft as powder.
compact	adjective	packed tightly into a small amount of space	This compact engine fits under the rear seat, which leaves the entire front of the car free for luggage.
comprehensive	adjective	covering everything, with nothing left out	Their survey was comprehensive, reaching every household in the county and asking about income, health, housing, and daily travel.
concise	adjective	saying much in very few words	Marta kept her lab report concise, fitting the whole experiment onto one page without leaving out a single measurement.
conspicuous	adjective	easy to notice because it stands out from everything near it	A bright orange vest makes a road crew conspicuous even in heavy fog and driving rain.
crude	adjective	made or done roughly, without skill or careful finish	Presses in the 1450s printed crude pages with smudged and uneven letters, yet those rough sheets carried ideas across Europe.
distinct	adjective	clearly separate and different from other things	Three distinct layers appear in the canyon wall, each a different color and each holding a different kind of shell.
elaborate	adjective	worked out with many parts and careful detail	Male bowerbirds build elaborate display structures decorated with blue bottle caps, bright petals, and berries arranged in neat curving rows.
elusive	adjective	hard to catch, find, or pin down	Snow leopards are so elusive that researchers waited four winters in the mountains before a camera caught even one.
inherent	adjective	belonging to something as a natural, permanent part of it	Every loan carries an inherent risk, because a borrower can lose a job long before the last payment comes due.
integral	adjective	necessary for something to be complete or to work	Rhythm is integral to a good speech, because listeners drift away when every sentence lands with the same flat beat.
latent	adjective	present but hidden and not yet active	Two seasons passed with the virus latent inside the plant before yellow spots finally showed on the lowest leaves.
novel	adjective	new and different from anything done before	Villagers tried a novel answer to the water shortage, stretching fog nets across the hillside instead of drilling another well.
opaque	adjective	too confusing to understand, or not letting light through	Rules for the contest were so opaque that no one could tell whether late entries counted or were quietly thrown away.
pristine	adjective	perfectly clean and untouched, as good as new	Divers found the shipwreck in pristine condition, its brass fittings still bright after eighty years in cold, dark water.
uniform	adjective	the same throughout, with no variation	Machine made bricks are uniform in size, which is why a modern wall needs only a thin line of mortar between them.
versatile	adjective	useful in many different ways	Bamboo is remarkably versatile, serving as scaffolding, flooring, paper, and even dinner in many parts of the world.
viable	adjective	able to work or survive successfully	Solar power became a viable choice for the village only after battery prices fell far enough to store electricity overnight.

Deck 10Action and effort30 words

Verbs for doing, helping, blocking, and pushing through. They carry the plot of almost every passage.

Word	Part of speech	Meaning	In a sentence
undertake	verb	to take on a task and begin doing it	Before a bridge can open, engineers undertake months of load testing to prove the deck will hold heavy traffic safely.
relinquish	verb	to give up something you hold or control	After the storm, the captain had to relinquish the wheel to a rested officer who could steer through the night.
curtail	verb	to cut short or reduce before the natural end	Budget cuts curtailed the summer program, ending it in July instead of running through the last week of August.
facilitate	verb	to make an action or process easier	A shared online map facilitated the rescue, letting three separate crews see which streets had already been searched.
impede	verb	to slow down or block the progress of something	Thick ice impeded the ferry all winter, so the island received mail only when a tug could clear a channel.
mitigate	verb	to make something bad less severe	Planting trees along the riverbank mitigated the flooding, since roots hold soil in place and slow the rushing water.
exacerbate	verb	to make a bad situation worse	Skipping the warm up exacerbated her sore knee, and by the third mile she could no longer finish the run.
foster	verb	to help something grow or develop over time	Small reading groups foster confidence in students who never raise a hand in a class of thirty.
hinder	verb	to get in the way of, making something harder to finish	Heavy packs hindered the climbers, who needed two extra days to reach a camp they usually pass by noon.
galvanize	verb	to shock a group into sudden action	News of the closing library galvanized the neighborhood, and four hundred people signed a petition in a single weekend.
alleviate	verb	to make pain or trouble easier to bear	Free bus passes alleviated the crowding at the parking garage, and students stopped arriving early to hunt for open spaces.
augment	verb	to add to something to make it larger or stronger	Conductors augmented the string section with six extra cellos so the lowest notes would carry to the back row.
circumvent	verb	to get around a rule or barrier instead of facing it	Traders circumvented the tax by shipping goods through a neighboring port and carrying them overland at night.
compel	verb	to force someone to act	Rising rent compelled the bakery to move two miles east, where the owner found a cheaper oven and a bigger kitchen.
confer	verb	to give an honor, right, or benefit to someone	The university conferred an honorary degree on the biologist who first mapped the migration of monarch butterflies.
cultivate	verb	to develop or improve something through care and steady effort	Over ten years the coach cultivated a habit of quiet review, and her players learned to study their own mistakes.
deter	verb	to discourage an action by making the result seem risky	Bright lights near the barn deterred coyotes, and the farmer lost no chickens for the rest of the season.
devise	verb	to think up and plan a method or system	Sailors devised a way to measure longitude with a clock, and long ocean voyages finally became far safer.
elicit	verb	to draw out an answer, reaction, or fact from someone	One open question elicited more detail from the witness than a full hour of yes or no questions.
enhance	verb	to improve the quality or value of something	A thin coat of wax enhanced the shine of the old table without hiding the grain of the wood.
exert	verb	to put strength, effort, or influence to use	Ants exert force many times their own weight, dragging seeds up steep tunnels without stopping to rest.
forgo	verb	to choose to do without something you could have	Many nurses forgo a lunch break during a busy shift, and hospitals now schedule extra staff to prevent that.
harness	verb	to bring under control and use for a purpose	Dutch engineers harnessed wind for centuries, using tall mills to pump water out of low fields and into canals.
implement	verb	to put a plan, rule, or system into action	The school implemented the new phone policy in September, and teachers reported far fewer interruptions by October.
induce	verb	to cause a particular effect or state	Certain medicines induce sleep by slowing the signals that pass between nerve cells in the brain.
initiate	verb	to start a process or set something in motion	Warm spring rain initiates the frog migration, and thousands of them cross the wet road in one night.
procure	verb	to obtain something with effort or care	It took the museum three years to procure the painting, which had passed through four private owners since the war.
sustain	verb	to keep something going over a long time	Coral reefs cannot sustain their growth in water this warm, and large sections have already turned bone white.
thwart	verb	to stop a plan or effort from succeeding	Rain thwarted the launch, so the crew rolled the rocket back into the hangar and waited another two weeks.
wield	verb	to hold and use power, influence, or a tool	Editors once wielded enormous power over which stories reached the public, choosing every headline on the front page.

How to actually remember them: the waterfall method

A list is not a study plan. Most students read a list twice, feel a warm sense of recognition, and then miss the question on test day because recognizing a word is not the same as knowing it. The fix is a flashcard technique that forces honest self-testing and spends nearly all of your time on the words you keep missing. Tutors have called it the waterfall for years because of the way the piles cascade.

You need one deck of about 30 cards, word on the front, meaning and example sentence on the back. Each deck above is already that size.

1. The first pass. Go through the whole deck once. Look at the word, say the meaning in your head, then flip the card. If you had it, the card goes in a Know It pile. If you hesitated or guessed, it goes in a Struggled pile. Be strict. A pause counts as a miss.
2. Cascade. Pick up only the Struggled pile and go through it again. Cards you now know start a second Know It pile, kept separate from the first. The rest stay in Struggled.
3. Repeat until the hard pile is small. Keep going through the shrinking Struggled pile, freezing a new Know It pile each time, until only a few cards are left, usually five or fewer. You now have a staircase of Know It piles and one small pile of genuinely hard words.
4. Climb back. Combine the hard pile with the most recent Know It pile and go through them together until you get every card right without a miss. Then add the next Know It pile back in and do the same with the bigger pile.
5. Finish with a clean pass. Keep folding piles back in, newest to oldest, until the whole deck is one pile you can go through without a single miss. That clean pass is the finish line, and it is the only signal that means “I know these.”

Why it works

The waterfall bakes in three things learning science keeps confirming. It is retrieval practice: you pull the meaning out of memory before you see it, which strengthens the memory far more than rereading does. It is effort-weighted: a word you know on the first pass gets seen twice, while a word you miss three times gets seen eight or nine, so time goes where it is needed. And the climb is a built-in check on false confidence. Words that felt known in pass one get tested again after you have been wrestling with harder ones, and the ones that were only familiar get caught before test day catches them.

A 30-card deck takes most students 20 to 30 minutes the first time. A re-run three or four days later usually takes under ten, and that second run is where the words become permanent.

A four-week plan for the whole list

Ten decks fit comfortably into a month at about fifteen minutes a day.

• Weeks 1 to 3: one new deck every other day. Run the full waterfall on the new deck. On the days between, re-run the deck from two days earlier; it should be much faster. By the end of week three you have touched all ten decks twice.
• Week 4: mixed review. Pull every word you struggled with more than once, from any deck, into one pile and waterfall that. Then spend the rest of the week on real Reading and Writing practice questions, and notice how many of these words show up in the passages. That is the moment the list stops being a list.
• Ongoing: five minutes, twice a week. Shuffle a random deck and do a clean pass. Anything missed goes back on the pile for the next session.

If the test is closer than a month away, do the decks in order. The first five carry the most weight in Reading and Writing passages, so they are worth doing even if the rest never gets touched.

Watch out for the second meanings

The test writers love a common word wearing an uncommon meaning. These come up often enough that they deserve their own minute. Each is in the list above with its SAT sense; here is the everyday meaning next to it so the two stop blurring together.

Word	The meaning you know	The meaning the SAT wants
qualify	to be eligible	to limit or soften a claim
novel	a long story	new and original
deliberate	to think it over	done on purpose
warrant	a police document	to justify or call for
minute	sixty seconds	extremely small
static	TV noise	not moving or changing
arbitrary	random	based on whim rather than a fair reason
exploit	to take advantage unfairly	to make full use of a resource
convention	a big meeting	an accepted practice or custom
abstract	a summary	based on ideas rather than concrete things
provincial	related to a province	narrow-minded, unaware of the wider world
compact	small and tidy	an agreement, or tightly packed

Questions parents and students ask