The SHSAT doesn't have a vocabulary section, but the scrambled paragraphs and reading passages sometimes have higher-level vocabulary words. The better your vocabulary is, the better you will be able to read, in general.
malignant - evil, causing harm, causing death (in regard to medical terminology)
obscured - covered
elated - very happy
utilitarian - useful
aesthetic - dealing with art or design
inexplicable - can't be explained
provisional - temporary
pedantic - wanting to show that one possesses knowledge, just to impress and not educate others
altruistic - concerned about others more than oneself
a din - a loud noise or amount of noise
to be conducive to - to lead to
plausible - possible
1. Although it is _____________ that there was more than one assassin of John F. Kennedy, no firm evidence has come to light.
2. Rebecca was relieved when the doctor told her that the tumor found in the X-ray was not _____________. As a benign tumor it would cause no real problems.
3. The architect has a great deal of style and was quite innovative, but the company who hired him was not happy with his new building design. They felt it was not _________________: it did not provide the necessary rooms for the necessary activities the company needed a building for.
4. An inability to negotiate is not_______________ to good diplomacy.
5. During a solar eclipse the sun is _____________ by the moon.
6. We met at a Starbucks but the ___________ from the music and the loud conversations was too much for us, so we left.
7. Joe was ____________ to receive the news that he had been accepted for graduate studies at the university he wished to attend.
8. A dress designer certainly needs utilitarian skills like sewing and computer design, but a good ______________ sense is the foundation of good dress design.
9. One would think that doctors and lawyers would be attracted to their professions through _____________ reasons, yet many feel that their primary concern is money, money and more money.
10. It's true that Dr. Schneider was a brilliant man who had studied in his field for several decades, but he was not a good educator. Indeed, he was too ____________. In every lecture he tried to impress his students with his knowledge instead of teaching them anything.
11. The reasons as to why prehistoric people painted various animals inside of caves remains ______________. There are many theories, but none of them is really satisfying.
12. Although Bob's company signed a contract to supply parts to an automobile manufacturer, the contract was ________________ and could be changed or replaced if Bob's company was not able to obtain certain materials.
Answers are below:
Answers:
1. plausible
2. malignant
3. utilitarian
4. conducive
5. obscured
6. din
7. elated
8. aesthetic
9. altruistic
10. pedantic
11. inexplicable
12. provisional
Showing posts with label shsat vocabulary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shsat vocabulary. Show all posts
Sunday, September 8, 2013
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
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
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
Thursday, July 4, 2013
The Age of the Universe - (vocabulary definitions)
I believe that the better your vocabulary is, the better you'll do on the SHSAT reading section.
Therefore I would like to present some articles I've found along with a vocabulary list and definitions from the article. This is a good opportunity to see whether you can read these types of articles easily.
The article:
http://news.yahoo.com/universe-older-thought-best-space-time-map-yet-143739816.html
Vocabulary:
cosmic - pertaining to or about the universe. The universe is also called the cosmos. The word cosmopolitan means a person who is worldly - someone who exhibits the values of someone with a lot of experience in the world: toleration, an open-mind, a sense of humor, intelligence etc.
a microwave is a type of energy-carrying wave that can travel through space.
on the edge of their seats - eagerly waiting, very eager, anxiously waiting.
profoundly - deeply
The Big Bang - this was the beginning of the universe when there was a sudden "explosion" from a single point. Nobody knows what came before the Big Bang or what caused the Big Bang. One philosopher once wrote, in Latin: "Ignoramus et ignorabimus." "We don't know and we will never know."
dense - if something is dense it is filled tightly: for example dense traffic, or a dense crowd
to get mired in - to get stuck in; This word is often used in regard to war: The USA became mired in the Vietnam War from 1965 to 1973. It means the USA got involved in the war and didn't feel it could stop the war while, in the meantime, many US soldiers and Vietnamese were being killed. A mire is like a swamp.
plasma - not a solid and not a liquid, in between solid and liquid and usually very hot; plasma can come from a volcano as well.
protons, electrons and neutrons - particles that make up an atom. Atoms make up molecules.
precious - valuable.
embedded in it - stuck inside it, found inside it.
to be uniform - to be the same everywhere. Athletic players wear uniforms so that by looking the same as the rest of their team-mates, they can be easily identified.
to display - to show.
variations in temperature - changes in temperature.
to correspond to - to equal.
fluctuations - changes.
to clump - to group together. If you put a bunch of things in a clump, you put things in kind of a pile.
which posits - which suggests. To posit a solution is to suggest a solution. i.e. Nobody has yet posited an explanation as to what came before the Big Bang.
random - not deliberate, not chosen or designed.
tantalizing - teasing, In Greek mythology Tantalus tried to steal the gift of immortality (living forever) from the gods. They caught him and punished him by chaining him in a pool of water so that whenever he tried to take a drink, the water would recede from (move away from) his mouth. He was surrounded by water but could never drink it.
to peel layers - if you wear many layers of clothing you have clothing on top of clothing. To peel off these layers means to remove them one after the other.
a constituent - a part of something else. A Congressperson, for example, represents his/her constituents. Here, constituents means the people in an area who are represented by the Congressperson.
an anomaly - something strange or something unpredicted and unusual.
to link - to join.
----------------
Therefore I would like to present some articles I've found along with a vocabulary list and definitions from the article. This is a good opportunity to see whether you can read these types of articles easily.
The article:
http://news.yahoo.com/universe-older-thought-best-space-time-map-yet-143739816.html
Vocabulary:
cosmic - pertaining to or about the universe. The universe is also called the cosmos. The word cosmopolitan means a person who is worldly - someone who exhibits the values of someone with a lot of experience in the world: toleration, an open-mind, a sense of humor, intelligence etc.
a microwave is a type of energy-carrying wave that can travel through space.
on the edge of their seats - eagerly waiting, very eager, anxiously waiting.
profoundly - deeply
The Big Bang - this was the beginning of the universe when there was a sudden "explosion" from a single point. Nobody knows what came before the Big Bang or what caused the Big Bang. One philosopher once wrote, in Latin: "Ignoramus et ignorabimus." "We don't know and we will never know."
dense - if something is dense it is filled tightly: for example dense traffic, or a dense crowd
to get mired in - to get stuck in; This word is often used in regard to war: The USA became mired in the Vietnam War from 1965 to 1973. It means the USA got involved in the war and didn't feel it could stop the war while, in the meantime, many US soldiers and Vietnamese were being killed. A mire is like a swamp.
plasma - not a solid and not a liquid, in between solid and liquid and usually very hot; plasma can come from a volcano as well.
protons, electrons and neutrons - particles that make up an atom. Atoms make up molecules.
precious - valuable.
embedded in it - stuck inside it, found inside it.
to be uniform - to be the same everywhere. Athletic players wear uniforms so that by looking the same as the rest of their team-mates, they can be easily identified.
to display - to show.
variations in temperature - changes in temperature.
to correspond to - to equal.
fluctuations - changes.
to clump - to group together. If you put a bunch of things in a clump, you put things in kind of a pile.
which posits - which suggests. To posit a solution is to suggest a solution. i.e. Nobody has yet posited an explanation as to what came before the Big Bang.
random - not deliberate, not chosen or designed.
tantalizing - teasing, In Greek mythology Tantalus tried to steal the gift of immortality (living forever) from the gods. They caught him and punished him by chaining him in a pool of water so that whenever he tried to take a drink, the water would recede from (move away from) his mouth. He was surrounded by water but could never drink it.
to peel layers - if you wear many layers of clothing you have clothing on top of clothing. To peel off these layers means to remove them one after the other.
a constituent - a part of something else. A Congressperson, for example, represents his/her constituents. Here, constituents means the people in an area who are represented by the Congressperson.
an anomaly - something strange or something unpredicted and unusual.
to link - to join.
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