SAT/WAT Vocabulary Prep - 66 Word Target List

SAT Vocabulary Development: Study Schedule and Targets

• Memorization Plan: A 29-day structured cycle covering Day 1 through Day 29.

• Current Target: Day 1 includes a goal of 66 words.

Root and Prefix Study: "ab-" and "a-" (Away, From, Not)

• abate

  • Prefix: ab-, a- (meaning: away, from, not).

  • Chinese Definition: v. (䈳)儐儱,儐退,儐聈,儐刑.

  • English Definition: To become less strong; to make something less strong.

  • Academic Application: As the use of non-oil energy resources has increased, the relationship between oil shocks—such as the $57\%$ rise in oil prices from May 1979 to January 1980—and national economic activity has abated.

• abrasive

  • Chinese Definition: adj. 焗猠瘄.

  • English Definition: Unkind and rude.

  • Academic Application: His abrasive manner has won him an unenviable notoriety.

• amorphous

  • Chinese Definition: adj. 故儐傒猠瘄.

  • English Definition: Having no definite shape, form, or structure.

  • Academic Application: Writer Lydia Davis observed that while traditional literary forms, such as the novel, are recognizable as such even as they evolve, there are more amorphous forms that might, for example, borrow elements from both fables and realist narratives to make something unconventional.

• anomalous

  • Chinese Definition: adj. 倒儸瘄, 匸儸瘄.

  • English Definition: Different from what is normal or expected.

  • Academic Application: There is a predictable relationship between a location's typical climate conditions and the efficacy of green spaces in that location, but anomalous local weather events have an outsized effect on deposition and dispersion of coarse particulate matter.

• anonymous

  • Chinese Definition: adj. 厐吤瘄.

  • English Definition: (Of a person) with a name that is not known or that is not made public.

  • Academic Application: Louisa May Alcott contributed A Modern Mephistopheles to the No Name Series, a collection of novels published anonymously between $1876$ and $1887$.

• apathy

  • Chinese Definition: n. 儗挠.

  • English Definition: The feeling of not being interested in or enthusiastic about anything.

  • Academic Application: There is widespread apathy among the electorate.

• asymmetry

  • Chinese Definition: n. 䈳匸猠.

  • English Definition: Lack of symmetry.

  • Academic Application: The way in which individual elements are balanced within a photographic image tends to affect how viewers perceive it: symmetry tends to give the elements equal importance, asymmetry emphasizes differences, and radial balance (organizing the elements around a central point) emphasizes the center over the periphery.

• atypical

  • Chinese Definition: adj. 匸儸瘄.

  • English Definition: Not typical or usual.

  • Academic Application: Contrary to the belief that they evolved from early ancestors with the bilateral form typical of many other animals, sea stars instead originated with an atypical body layout that was neither bilaterally nor radially symmetrical.

Prefix Study: "a-", "ac-", "ad-", "af-", "ag-", "al-", "an-", "ap-" (To, Toward, Near)

• acclaim

  • Chinese Definition: v. 茤戧; n. 茤戧.

  • English Definition: [1] To praise or welcome somebody/something publicly. [2] Praise and approval for somebody/something, especially an artistic achievement.

  • Academic Applications:

    • [1] In a variety of ways, Samuel Kamakau, Kristiana Kahakauwila, and other acclaimed writers have drawn on these stories to craft a rich portrait of the Hawaiian Islands and their people.

    • [2] These works are widely praised, meaning that Edwards receives substantial acclaim as an artist.

• accrue

  • Chinese Definition: v. (鈄愒)剂逓,刑刐.

  • English Definition: To increase over a period of time.

  • Academic Application: It is a remarkable story that happened to an unremarkable person, though one could plausibly argue that because the story is valuable, some of its value accrues to the person at its center.

• adapt

  • Chinese Definition: v. 改猇.

  • English Definition: To change a book or play so that it can be made into a play, film/movie, television programme, etc.

  • Academic Application: It offers information about how Yamauchi adapted her short story into a play.

• adept

  • Chinese Definition: adj. 猠猣瘄, 戴逓瘄.

  • English Definition: Good at doing something that is quite difficult.

  • Academic Application: There is no doubt that Irving Langmuir must have proved himself to be extraordinarily adept at understanding some of the most advanced concepts in the field of chemistry.

• adhesion

  • Chinese Definition: n. 鉳阸(刔), 鉳猥(刔).

  • English Definition: The ability to stick or become attached to something.

  • Academic Application: But the mere application of a direct current electrical field was not sufficient to cause increased adhesion.

• adverse

  • Chinese Definition: adj. 䈳刐瘄.

  • English Definition: Negative and unpleasant; not likely to produce a good result.

  • Academic Application: CLPs primarily transmitted by ingestion were less dependent on host species and less adversely affected by warming temperatures than were CLPs that use other transmission strategies.

• affinity

  • Chinese Definition: n. 啃处, 啃猒; n. 儶切匑猥, 猒䈳匣.

  • English Definition: [1] A strong feeling that you understand someone/something and like them or it. [2] A close relationship between two people or things that have similar qualities, structures, or features.

  • Academic Applications:

    • [1] The presenter credited much of her inspiration to an affinity for Ellease Southerland's work in Let the Lion Eat Straw, which was among the presenter's favorite books as a child.

    • [2] Although similarities in tools could be attributed to imitative behavior or trade, Nefize Ezgi Alunisik et al. found evidence of genetic affinity among the populations of Cayönü Tepesi, Central Anatolia, the South Levant, and—to a lesser extent—Central Zagros.

• aggregate

  • Chinese Definition: adj. 怳计瘄.

  • English Definition: Made up of several amounts that are added together to form a total number.

  • Academic Application: Eighteenth-century economist Adam Smith is famed for his metaphor of the invisible hand, which he putatively used to illustrate a robust model of how individuals produce aggregate benefits by pursuing their own economic interests.

• alleviate

  • Chinese Definition: v. 儐聈.

  • English Definition: To make something less severe.

  • Academic Application: Many experts, like lawyer and cycling advocate Ernesto Hernandez-Lopez, have proposed bike travel as one possible way to alleviate congestion on the busy roadways of Los Angeles County, California.

Advanced Verb and Adjective Forms

• allude

  • Chinese Definition: v. 儵挤.

  • English Definition: To mention something in an indirect way.

  • Academic Application: It stresses the discrepancy between Mr. Ely's public and private conduct and then alludes to his motivation for hiding his true personality.

• amalgamate

  • Chinese Definition: v. 刖分儸, 刖分匶.

  • English Definition: To put two or more things together so that they form one.

  • Academic Application: This information will be amalgamated with information obtained earlier.

• amass

  • Chinese Definition: v. (兒挤大鄂)礱儒, 礱聘.

  • English Definition: To collect something, especially in large quantities.

  • Academic Application: Agglomeration economies arise when multiple firms in related industries amass in an area, as with leather production firms and footwear manufacturers in Glasgow, UK.

• amend

  • Chinese Definition: v. 䈳挠, 䈳订.

  • English Definition: To change a law, document, statement, etc. slightly in order to correct a mistake or to improve it.

  • Academic Application: He asked to see the amended version.

• annotate

  • Chinese Definition: v. 猠…䈳挠褣.

  • English Definition: To add notes to a book or text, giving explanations or comments.

  • Academic Application: Historians annotate, check and interpret the diary selections.

• annul

  • Chinese Definition: v. 刖故效.

  • English Definition: To state officially that something is not legally recognized.

  • Academic Application: His second marriage was annulled because he never divorced his first wife.

• antagonistic

  • Chinese Definition: adj. 䈳焀瘄.

  • English Definition: Showing or feeling opposition.

  • Academic Application: It can also be antagonistic, such as when a candidate turns toward their competitor during a debate and makes eye contact that signals hostility.

• apostle

  • Chinese Definition: n. 倡刲聅, 鈓吹聅.

  • English Definition: A person who strongly believes in a policy or an idea and tries to make other people believe in it.

  • Academic Application: The men of culture are the true apostles of equality.

• appraise

  • Chinese Definition: v. 评䈳.

  • English Definition: If you appraise something or someone, you consider them carefully and form an opinion about them.

  • Academic Application: This prompted many employers to appraise their selection and recruitment policies.

• apprehend

  • Chinese Definition: v. 琒褣.

  • English Definition: To understand or recognize something.

  • Academic Application: I don't apprehend your meaning.

• apprentice

  • Chinese Definition: n. 学徒.

  • English Definition: A young person who works for an employer for a fixed period of time in order to learn the particular skills needed in their job.

  • Academic Application: Most of the work was done by apprentices.

• apprise

  • Chinese Definition: v. 逓猥, 告猥.

  • English Definition: To tell or inform somebody of something.

  • Academic Application: We must apprise them of the dangers that may be involved.

Root Study: "ambi-" and "amphi-" (Both, Around)

• ambient

  • Chinese Definition: adj. 各儴猠堳瘄.

  • English Definition: Relating to the surrounding area; on all sides.

  • Academic Application: Water temperatures at this site—named the Octopus Garden—climb as high as $11^{\circ}C$, much warmer than the ambient $1.6^{\circ}C$ typical at this depth.

• ambiguity

  • Chinese Definition: n. 䈳猸儒.

  • English Definition: The state of being difficult to understand or explain because of involving many different aspects or aims.

  • Academic Application: Detailed statistical analysis helped preclude claims of ambiguity, confirming the signal at a confidence level of over $99\%$.

• ambivalence

  • Chinese Definition: n. 焀爘怳猪.

  • English Definition: The simultaneous existence of two opposed and conflicting attitudes, emotions, etc.

  • Academic Application: "Poetry" is a 1919 poem by Marianne Moore. The poem highlights an ambivalence toward poetry as the speaker acknowledges its merits while also expressing a sense of displeasure.

Prefix Study: "circum-" (Around, Roundabout)

• circumscribe

  • Chinese Definition: v. 鄲制, 猦朿.

  • English Definition: To limit somebody/something's freedom, rights, power, etc.

  • Academic Application: "and leave thou (inexpressibly to unravel) / thou life, with its immensity and fear, so that, now circumscribed, now immeasurable, / it is alternately stone in thy will and star."

• circumspection

  • Chinese Definition: n. 谲愒.

  • English Definition: The act of thinking very carefully about something before doing it, because there may be risks involved.

  • Academic Application: The proposal is ambitious. But circumspection will only make the problems posed by the pandemic harder to fix.

• circumvent

  • Chinese Definition: v. 褣透.

  • English Definition: Circumvent something to find a way of avoiding a difficulty or a rule.

  • Academic Application: They found a way of circumventing the law.

Prefix Study: "con-", "com-", "co-", "col-" (Together, With)

• coalesce

  • Chinese Definition: v. 刖匶, 联刐, 猣刐.

  • English Definition: To come together to form one larger group, substance, etc.

  • Academic Application: One popular theory of the origin of the Moon, the "big whack," posits that a protoplanet called Theia collided with Earth, flinging debris into orbit that eventually coalesced into the Moon.

• coalition

  • Chinese Definition: n. 联刐.

  • English Definition: The act of two or more joining together.

  • Academic Application: "Coalition" is the term for a group of male lions, and across the Greater Kruger National Park in South Africa, many coalitions vie for territory.

• cohesion

  • Chinese Definition: n. 儒聘刔.

  • English Definition: The act or state of keeping together.

  • Academic Application: Such stylistic diversity is encouraged in part by the music-streaming app Spotify, whose curated playlist of hyperpop songs balances cohesion with variety.

• collude

  • Chinese Definition: v. 䈳谋, 儱谋.

  • English Definition: To work together secretly or illegally in order to trick other people.

  • Academic Application: Worse, they appear to have colluded in order to execute the scam.

• commend

  • Chinese Definition: v. 茤戧.

  • English Definition: To praise somebody/something, especially publicly.

  • Academic Application: In a 2018 article celebrating films depicting the Black experience, critics for the New York Times commended William Greaves's 1968 film Symbiopsychotaxiplasm, Take One and Spike Lee's 1992 film Malcolm X, praising the former as "a vital artifact of its time" and the latter as "electrifying."

• commission

  • Chinese Definition: v. 戳刲 (谱写、刐䈳、刑䈳戔刐刐).

  • English Definition: To officially ask somebody to write, make or create something or to do a task for you.

  • Academic Application: The first public library became available in Rome in $28\,BCE$ and was soon followed by one commissioned by Emperor Augustus.

• complement

  • Chinese Definition: v. 聈匸, 聈足.

  • English Definition: To add to something in a way that improves it or makes it more attractive.

  • Academic Application: The colors in an Impressionist painting were often chosen to complement the colors of the frame it would be placed in.

• compliance

  • Chinese Definition: n. 朝䐳.

  • English Definition: The practice of obeying rules or requests made by people in authority.

  • Academic Application: While bioaccumulation of manufactured nanoparticles may be inherently worrisome, it has been hypothesized that CeO2-NP bioaccumulation in invertebrates like D. polymorpha could serve a valuable proxy role, obviating the need for manufacturers to conduct costly and intrusive sampling of vertebrate species—such as rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), commonly used in regulatory compliance testing for nanoparticle bioaccumulation, as environmental protection laws currently require.

• compound

  • Chinese Definition: v. 䈳刐鄂, 䈳怖化; n. 化刐爩.

  • English Definition: [1] To make something bad become even worse by causing further damage or problems. [2] A thing consisting of two or more separate things combined together.

  • Academic Applications:

    • [1] The problems were compounded by severe food shortages.

    • [2] They found associations between plants' glucosinolates (compounds that produce spicy and bitter flavors) and plants' growth conditions.

• comprehensive

  • Chinese Definition: adj. 详儸瘄, 全鍢瘄.

  • English Definition: Including all, or almost all, the items, details, facts, information, etc., that may be concerned.

  • Academic Application: Therefore, if those involved in such efforts want to ensure that a comprehensive range of information is secured, they must incorporate the preservation of songs into their broader efforts to protect Indigenous languages.

• comprise

  • Chinese Definition: v. 猠…刐䈳.

  • English Definition: To have somebody/something as parts or members.

  • Academic Application: It clarified that microorganism activity levels in the plant-soil cores varied depending on which microorganism comprised the community.

• concede

  • Chinese Definition: v. 愣认.

  • English Definition: To admit that something is true, logical, etc.

  • Academic Application: It concedes that a finding may not appear to support the main view that the text advances.

• concurrent

  • Chinese Definition: adj. 各怳发刐瘄.

  • English Definition: Existing or happening at the same time.

  • Academic Application: Archaeological evidence of significant increases in clam size and abundance in that area concurrent with the documented past implementation of the method described in the songs supports the conclusion.

• condemn

  • Chinese Definition: v. 迫䈳…愣受儰堳(戔䐳愒快瘄爘儵).

  • English Definition: To force somebody to accept a difficult or unpleasant situation.

  • Academic Application: Now I suddenly find myself plunged into this wilderness [the estate], condemned to see the same stupid people from morning till night and listen to their futile conversations.

• confer

  • Chinese Definition: v. 赋䈸.

  • English Definition: To officially give someone a title etc.

  • Academic Application: Many advantages that the transmission strategy used by three-host CLPs may have conferred did not completely offset the negative effects of other temperature-driven factors on CLP abundance.

• configure

  • Chinese Definition: v. 刐献.

  • English Definition: To arrange something in a particular way, especially computer equipment; to make equipment or software work in the way that the user prefers.

  • Academic Application: The researchers have concluded that these settlements were culturally linked to because each of the settlements is the same age and configured in the same manner as Izapa, with a pyramid to the north and a plaza to the south.

• confine

  • Chinese Definition: v. 鄲制.

  • English Definition: To keep somebody/something inside the limits of a particular activity, subject, area, etc.

  • Academic Application: Several advantages—the ability to react strongly with chip components, to avoid interference from other waves, and to be confined within tiny circuits—have positioned acoustic waves as a promising alternative to electrical waves for transmitting data on computer chips.

• conflate

  • Chinese Definition: v. 刖分.

  • English Definition: To put two or more things together to make one new thing.

  • Academic Application: The most insightful of these discussions maintain a rigid distinction between the actor and the character, taking care never to conflate them.

• conform to

  • Chinese Definition: v. 逵儸, 逵䐳, 䐳䐳(褣则、法刑刐).

  • English Definition: To agree with or match something.

  • Academic Application: The reasons for this characterization may seem irrefutable, but linking Unamuno with the Generation of '98 risks disregarding the subtleties in his style that do not conform neatly to the conventions of this literary movement.

• confound

  • Chinese Definition: v. 䈳儰怑惊讶.

  • English Definition: To confuse and surprise somebody.

  • Academic Applications:

    • [1] While there are several possible reasons for this, one is that practitioners may overlook confounding variables that account for the results they attribute to the interventions in question.

    • [2] Posed in 1970, McMullen's g-conjecture confounded many mathematicians before yielding to the efforts of Karim Adiprasito, who presented a proof of it in 2018.

• conjecture

  • Chinese Definition: n. 猒测.

  • English Definition: An opinion or idea that is not based on definite knowledge and is formed by guessing.

  • Academic Application: Before the Mariner 2 mission completed a successful flyby of Venus in 1962, astronomers' ideas about the planet were little more than conjectures.

• connotation

  • Chinese Definition: n. 儐䈳, 儵儐愒䈳.

  • English Definition: An idea suggested by a word in addition to its main meaning.

  • Academic Application: His work invites sleep and thereby strips the description of its negative connotation.

• conscientious

  • Chinese Definition: adj. 刑刉认猠瘄, 䈳䈳䐳苟瘄.

  • English Definition: Taking care to do things carefully and correctly.

  • Academic Application: She performed all her duties conscientiously.

• consecutive

  • Chinese Definition: adj. 连猭䐳故瘄.

  • English Definition: Following one after another in a series, without interruption.

  • Academic Application: The time between consecutive pulses of an RRAT is referred to as a period.

• consolidate

  • Chinese Definition: v. 䈳刐刐, 䈳儱刐.

  • English Definition: To make a position of power or success stronger so that it is more likely to continue.

  • Academic Application: With this new movie he has consolidated his position as the country's leading director.

• conspicuous

  • Chinese Definition: adj. 昤显瘄.

  • English Definition: Easy to see or notice.

  • Academic Application: Political blogs with conspicuous ideological alignments became an integral component of US media in the early 2000s.

• conspire

  • Chinese Definition: v. 䈳䈳儱各导脴(䈳舐各朳).

  • English Definition: To seem to work together to make something bad happen.

  • Academic Application: Let us, dear reader, remember the punishment of idle curiosity, as taught in the true and affecting history [named] 'Blue Beard': and, striving to be content with the facts in the case, seek to lift the veil, which the sensibility of true love and feminine delicacy, have alike conspired to draw.

Word Forms and Additional Vocabulary

• consternation

  • Chinese Definition: n. 惊恐.

  • English Definition: A worried, sad feeling after you have received an unpleasant surprise.

  • Academic Application: When she entered [the restaurant] her appearance created no surprise, no consternation, as she had half feared it might.

• constitute

  • Chinese Definition: v. (褣认猣戔猫刲䈳)是, 褣猗䈳.

  • English Definition: To be considered to be something.

  • Academic Application: It notes why the two architectural projects described in the text constitute major departures from Barragán's typical style.

• contemporaneous

  • Chinese Definition: adj. 各故朿瘄.

  • English Definition: Happening or existing at the same time.

  • Academic Application: Mantle-derived rocks younger than $3.2$ billion years contain some material that is not found in older mantle-derived rocks but is found in older and contemporaneous lithospheric rocks.

• contemporary

  • Chinese Definition: n. 各䈳䈳; adj. 当䈳瘄.

  • English Definition: [1] A person who lives or lived at the same time as somebody else, especially somebody who is about the same age. [2] Belonging to the present time.

  • Academic Applications:

    • [1] It explains why the architectural project discussed later in the sentence was highly regarded by Barragán's contemporaries.

    • [2] The synthesis of sleek, contemporary elements and traditional organic materials in a single design is a trend with both aesthetic and highly practical purposes.