Saturday, July 6, 2013

Test Your (SHSAT-level) Vocabulary

There is no vocabulary test on the SHSAT, but one way they make the reading passages more difficult is by including tricky vocabulary. 

Please test your vocabulary using this exercise.  After you try the exercise, please look up the words you don't know.  These are essential vocabulary words for a test like the SHSAT.

Vocabulary Review - Please test yourself
Words from which to choose: 

domestic, probation, cruelty,
alleged, an ultimatum, desolate,
dilapidated, to commercialize, barbaric,
an obstacle, to intercede, to stimulate,
sluggish, prominent, to be indifferent to

Verbs can be used in various tenses etc.

1)  In the morning, when I wake up, I usually feel and act a little ___________, but after I have a cup of coffee I become more energetic and active.

2)  Mitt Romney ran against Barack Obama in the last US presidential race.  One big __________ to his success was the belief by many Americans that he was a very rich person who did not care about others.

3)  Because the young man had not committed any other previous crimes, he was just sentenced to one year of ________________.  He was warned that if he committed any crimes during this period, he would be immediately thrown in jail.

4)  About 20% of Americans can be classified as living in a state of poverty, yet many politicians and newspapers seem completely ________________ to their problems.  Politicians never speak about the poor and newspapers never mention them.

5)  The economic crisis that began in the USA in 2008 was not just a ____________ issue.  This crisis has caused problems and suffering all around the world.

6)  Lee Harvey Oswald was __________ to have been the lone assassin of president John Kennedy, however many people think others were involved.

7)  When a person travels into neighborhoods on the south side of Chicago, where most of the poorer people in that city live, he/she will see many ______________ houses which cannot be restored or repaired due to a lack of money by the inhabitants.

8)  William Powers, a ______________ university president, believes that affirmative action programs are necessary to make sure that American university campuses are racially diverse. (Affirmative action is the practice of colleges giving Black and Latino college applicants extra points just because they are Black and Latino, so that they can compete effectively against White and Asian students - who, for a number of social and economic factors, seem to do better in school.)

9)  Americans were shocked by the ____________ of the man in Cleveland who held three women captive in his house for 10 years.  He regularly beat and abused them.

10)  President Obama is currently trying to decide whether the USA should _______________ between the rebels and the government in the civil war in Syria.  Most Americans do not want to get involved in that conflict, however, regardless of the suffering.

11)  President Obama has issued an ____________ to president Assad of Syria.  If Syria uses chemical weapons, the USA will intercede in the Syrian civil war.

12)  A fast food company wanted to pay a New York City school to have advertisements in the school's cafeteria.  The school, however, stated it did not want to ________________ aspects of their students' educational experience.

13)  Although many parts of the American Southwest might seem _____________, their is wonderful natural beauty to be found in the deserts there.

14)  Americans have debated this issue for many years:  Was the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki a ______________ action, or an action necessary to end World War II?

15)  In his first four years of office, President Obama borrowed a great deal of money in order to try to ________________ the American economy and create more jobs.  Unfortunately, it didn't work.


Answers are below.



Farther....


Farther...



Just a little farther below.......


OK< here are the answers!!!! :)



1) sluggish
2) obstacle
3) probation
4) indifferent
5) domestic
6) alleged
7) dilapidated
8) prominent
9) cruelty
10) intercede
11) ultimatum
12) commercialize
13) desolate
14) barbaric
15) stimulate