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520 Words to Know for the Digital SAT

 

If you will be taking the new, digital version of the SAT at some point, it’s a good idea to start building your vocabulary!  I’ve been collaborating with a few other tutors in the National Test Prep Association to scour through the 4 practice tests that have been released and compile a list of the most challenging words.  Use the link below to access our full list.

Methodology

If you’re curious as to our methodology, here’s what we did.  (By the way, methodology is one of the words on the list!)  Each tutor looked at either one of the four digital SAT tests in College Board’s Bluebook app or at one of the linear tests.  The tests in the Bluebook app are what most students will experience when taking the digital SAT.  The linear tests were created as an accommodation for students who are unable to look at a screen for an extended amount of time.  While most students won’t be permitted to take the linear test for an official score, there’s no reason you can’t use them for extra practice!  Each of us selected the most “interesting” words from our assigned test and then combined all the words into the list you see here.  Over time, we’ve added to the list by including words found on Khan Academy exercises, College Board sample materials, and even words rumored to have appeared on the first international digital SAT.

Interesting finds

Unsurprisingly, some of these digital SAT words were selected by more than one tutor.  In fact, each of these words made it onto four tutors’ lists: foster, interpret, mimic, speculate, and validate.  We also noticed that there were several passages about scientific research, so words such as hypothesize, conjecture, credited, fluctuation, and parasitic all need to be understood in a scientific context.  There were also quite a few words that are derived from old-fashioned Latin roots.  For instance, beneficial, beneficiary, and benign come from the Latin word bene, which means good.  Impartial, impenetrable, imperceptible, impractical, inadequate, and indecipherable all start with the Latin word for not.  Words added in our most recent update include evince, preclude, corroborate, and palpable.

Next Steps

We tutors plan to extend this project by adding new words, adding definitions, and creating digital flashcards to share with our students. So check the Test Prep for Success site often for updates and more practice material for the digital SAT.

 

Click here to download the complete Digital SAT word list as a pdf.

Click here to join a Quizlet class based on our word list.