The words in (A), (C), and (D) might be a little harder to deal with, though, and this is why I’d recommend that most test-takers skip this question and invest their energy in other questions, where it would be more likely to pay off. These 3 words will be hard to take apart, and most test-takers will be left guessing and probably losing points.
Of course, if we happen to know the word “bucolic,” we’ll know that (A) is correct. But most test-takers won’t know that word—and, even if you do know it, the chances that it will be helpful on a future SAT question are practically zero.
(Many people who prep in the traditional way will see this question and decide they need to learn the words “bucolic,” “lugubrious,” and “sundry.” But the odds are very small that you would ever see those words again in a position on the SAT that actually matters. If you want to learn those words to further your own education, that’s a different story, of course. Just don’t expect them to make a difference when you take the test for real.)
Page 487, Question 6
Unlike the previous question, this is one that most test-takers should invest their time and energy in, because it’s a question we can probably answer correctly by reading carefully and relying on the meanings of words we know.
From reading the sentence carefully and remembering the rules of the SAT, we can tell that the word in the first blank needs to mean “foolish.” The word in the second blank needs to mean something that a person could be “accuse[d]” of for applying “skewed data.”
For the first blank, then, (A), (B), and (E) might all seem like good ideas. That means we need to figure out whether “remonstrance,” “erudition,” or “chicanery” might be the best option for the second blank, the thing that somebody would be accused of for applying skewed data.
If we know the meanings of those words, the answer is pretty clear. But let’s assume that we don’t, and attack the words to try to figure out what they might mean.
“Remonstrance” looks like it might have a meaning similar to “demonstration,” since both words seem to have a prefix stuck on the root “monstr.” (We might also wonder if the word is related to “monster,” but, even if it is, it wouldn’t have anything to do with applying skewed data.)
For “erudition,” we might see a connection to the ides of “rudeness,” or of something being “rudimentary.” “Rudeness” does seem like something that a person could be accused of, so it might look tempting, but the sentence says that a person would be accused of rudeness because he “appl[ied] skewed data,” and that doesn’t really work, unfortunately—the word “rude” applies to somebody who does something impolite, not to somebody who applies bad data.
That leaves us with “chicanery.” This is a word that’s probably pretty hard to take apart. But if we’re reasonably confident that the other four answer choices don’t work, and that the first half of this one definitely does work, then I’d go ahead and mark (E) and get the question right.
This, then, is an example of a question that looks pretty challenging at first but can probably ultimately be figured out by reading carefully and paying close attention to the rules of the test and to the exact meanings of words.
Page 520, Question 7
In this question, we can see that the word in the blank needs to refer to the idea of having “insights . . . beyond ordinary perception.” Many test-takers incorrectly choose (B) for this question because the idea of being a stockbroker seems to be related to the idea of making a profit, but this is yet another example of how important it is to read everything on the SAT very carefully: the word in the blank needs to restate the ideas at the end of the sentence, not the idea of being a stockbroker.
Most students will know the meaning of the word in (A), and will be able to tell that a “mentor” is not necessarily someone who has extra-sensory perception. The same goes for (C): most test-takers will know the word “counterfeit” and will realize that this choice has nothing to do with special insights. (E), as well, is another word that relates to something most test-takers will recognize—in this case, the word “propaganda,” from history classes.
That leaves us with (D), a word we may have a hard time taking apart (students of French will realize that the word means “clear-seeing” in French, which certainly goes along with the idea of having extremely good perception, since sight is one way to perceive things). But, even if we can’t take it apart, we know for sure that the other 4 choices don’t work, and that means (D) must be right.