How to Prepare for SAT Vocabulary Questions

If you are college-bound, you must take the SAT, or Scholastic Assessment Test, and submit scores with your application materials. The SAT is a three-hour exam that measures mathematical, writing and verbal skills. An excellent SAT score, combined with active involvement in high school academics and activities, can get you into the college of your choice. Here's how to prepare for SAT questions that test your vocabulary.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

1. Take a practice SAT vocabulary test. This will help you gauge how much time you need to devote to learning new words. Many websites have free SAT vocabulary tests, or you can buy SAT books and flash cards at a bookstore.
2. Enroll in an SAT prep course. Prep courses vary in terms of cost and learning format, but all serve to significantly improve test scores. Your course instructor should provide you with a list of common SAT vocabulary words and teach you strategies for correctly answering sentence completion and reading comprehension questions.
3. Learn prefixes, roots and suffixes. Committing the components of words to memory will increase your vocabulary exponentially and allow you to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words. This knowledge proves invaluable when taking multiple choice tests because it provides a sound technique for answering questions through the process of elimination.
4. Prepare to answer SAT vocabulary questions as if you were back in elementary school. Make or purchase flash cards and go over the words whenever you have spare time. Ask someone to quiz you.
5. Develop stories, songs or mnemonics to learn SAT vocabulary words. These methods generally work best for short-term retention and must be accompanied by more conventional approaches for optimal results.
6. Surround yourself with vocabulary-building activities. Read college level books and work difficult crossword puzzles in lieu of watching television. Every time you encounter a word you don't know, look up the definition in the dictionary and make a flash card.
7. Work practice problems every day. If you have an excellent vocabulary but are unfamiliar with the SAT format, you can lose points. Learn what the test designers typically look for. Determine how to spot and correctly answer tricky questions.

Tips & Warnings

• Avoid cramming the night before the SAT. Get a good night's rest and do something relaxing like rent a movie or go out to eat with friends. Cramming is stressful and is generally not an effective learning technique.
• There are a lot of cool vocabulary programs available, the most innovative of which allows students to learn SAT vocabulary words through hip-hop music.