Vocabulary.com's Roadmap to the SAT

Follow our roadmap and you'll be prepared before you sharpen that #2 pencil.

Take the guesswork out of preparing for the SAT Reading Test with Vocabulary.com’s week-by-week test prep program. We divide the words you’ll study into three groups:

Multiple-Meaning Words — words you’ll likely see in SAT reading passages and questions about word meaning
The Language of the Test — words you’ll need to know to understand test directions and questions
Words to Capture Tone — words you’ll come across in questions about an author’s attitude, tone, or point of view

Want to make test prep even easier? Set yourself up for success with Vocabulary.com's SAT Vocabulary Mastery Package. It’s an easy-to-follow eight-week study program, plus you’ll get weekly quizzes to check your understanding.

Multiple-Meaning WordsContext is King
Multiple-meaning words are words that take on different meanings in different contexts. While a word like lucrative has only one meaning ("producing a profit"), a multiple-meaning word like figure is used in a variety of ways, depending on the subject. You might learn about a historical figure in history class, calculate a figure in math class, or analyze a figure of speech in English class. Multiple-meaning words are especially important on the SAT since you'll have to define them in Words in Context questions.
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Language of the TestLearn to Speak "SAT"
Language of the Test words are academic vocabulary terms that frequently appear in SAT "test talk." They are not the words that may appear in the reading passages; they are the words that show up everywhere else. In fact, we just used a Language of the Test word in the previous sentence. Find it? If you guessed passage, you're right. You can't do well on the SAT if you don't fully understand the academic language being used in the test directions, in the questions, and in the answer options.
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Words to Capture ToneGetting Inside the Author's Head
The SAT Reading Test is full of questions that will ask you to figure out an author's attitude about the subject of a reading passage (e.g., What tone does the author establish? What point of view?). And since the Reading Test is a multiple choice exam, each question offers four answer options that are full of words that can be used to establish tone and point of view. These are the types of words you'll learn on our Words to Capture Tone lists.
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