Up Your Score (27 page)

The
uncouth
y
outh
hit people in the
tooth
(then scratched his hairy pits and grunted).

difficult to govern; impossible to discipline

They were used to living without
rules
, so they were
unruly
.

unprincipled; lacking ethical values

After the church robbery, the minister lamented, “It takes an
unscrupulous
criminal to
unscrew
the seats and leave us
pewless
.”

unaware; not knowing

The Evil Testing Serpent fiendishly devours
unwitting
students.

outcome; result

Note:
This word was originally an archery term. The last shot of an archery tournament was called the
upshot
, and it often determined the result or outcome of the tournament.

Bart was hit in the rear by an
upshot
at the archery tournament. The
upshot
of this was that he had to take the SAT standing
up
.

to illegally seize the power or rights from another

Yusef
usurped
Boris’s position by staging a coup.

lending of money at outrageously high interest; loan sharking

When the 250-pound loan shark practiced
usury
, his creditors
usually
paid him back pretty quickly.

“Don’t be
taciturn
!” urged the talkative twerp wearing a tutu. “Look at me—I have great
tact
, and no one could accuse me of
trepidation
,” he continued. “In fact, it’s often been said that my
temerity
pays
tribute
to my
torrid
soul.”

His
temperate
companion held
tenaciously
to her
tenets
and tried to tune out her
tempestuous
tutued friend’s
tirade
. She muttered, “He must not be
terrestrial
.”

The situation was entirely too
tedious
, so I turned to someone else at my table and asked, “Do you think Congress will
table
the discussion about the new chairs?”

There was an almost
tangible
silence. Then a sandaled young man put an ice cube in his
tepid
tea and said, “That’s a touchy subject here. We’re all upset about our senator’s
unscrupulous
treachery
in supporting the bill.”

“We’re going to try to
thwart
him,” said the
temperate
companion
tersely
. “If that bill passes, I’ll
truncate
his term with allegations of
usury
, and the
upshot
of this will be that I will
usurp
his power.”

Her words caught me
unawares
. The girl had seemed to me to be polite and
unassuming
, but instead she was an
uncouth
and
unruly
youth.

Craziness was
ubiquitous
.

to waver from one side to the other; oscillate

While the skier
vacillated
about whether to use Vaseline or Chapstick, his lips got chapped.

emptiness; vacuum

The scientists were amazed by the utter
vacuity
in the proctor’s brain—there was not a trace of brain matter anywhere.

vain
; boastful

Vainglorious
Gloria
boasted about her vocabulary in
vain
—she got a 210 on the critical reading section.

courage; bravery

Val
erie showed
valor
when she fought off the Evil Testing Serpent and got a perfect score on her SAT.

with ardor; energetically or violently forceful

They fed the sedatives to the
vehement
protesters
via mints
.

The motto of Harvard is “Veritas” and the motto of Yale is “Lux et veritas.” These two schools may be knocking down your door once you get your 2400, so you might as well know that
veritas
is Latin for “truth.” (
Lux
means “light.”) When you see the root “ver-” in an SAT word, that word probably has something to do with truth.

Examples:

veracity—truthfulness; accuracy

verification—proof that something is true

verisimilar—appearing to be true or possible

verisimilitude—quality of being verisimilar

veritable—unquestionable; actual; true

verity—statement or belief considered to be the permanent truth

vermicide—anything used to kill worms (Well, it doesn’t always work.)

excessively wordy

Note:
This word has nothing to do with truth.

They wrote and transcribed and copied down on paper and composed and thought of and typed a sentence that would be
verbose
because it had excessive
verb
s.

to irritate or bother vexation the act of vexing

His
vexing
habit of reciting vocabulary words during sexual activity ruined his sex life.

to slander; defame (think: make vile)

Senator Joe McCarthy’s
vill
ainous lies
vilified
many innocent people.

Although the next two words have the same first six letters and are related, they are not at all synonymous.

to clear of blame or suspicion

The lawyers will
vindicate
their client by displaying evidence they ha
ve, indicating
that he didn’t mean to steal the adult diapers from the grocery store.

vengeful

The
vindictive
Wicked Witch of the West wanted to kill Dorothy to avenge the death of the Wicked Witch of the East.

animated; full of energy

Sleepy the Dwarf took some
Viva
rin and became
vivacious
.

what you need to be successful in life, according to the ETS; the bane of our existence, according to anyone who has made it all the way to the Vs

obnoxiously loud

The
vociferous
student demanded in a loud
voice
that the proctor turn on the lights before handing out the tests.

fluent in speech (especially in the derogatory sense of someone who talks too much)

The professor was so
voluble
that we had to take
volu
mes of notes.

eager to consume mounds of food

We were so
voracious
that we even ate the Tupperware.

pointy-eared alien, devoid of warmth and emotion, who thinks logically

Come on! Don’t fall asleep. Only a few more pages to go.

unprotected

The Evil Testing Serpent is
vulnerable
to the tricks in
Up Your Score.

immoral; unchaste; cruel

Blowing up the
one-ton
truck was an act of
wanton
destruction.

They had a
wanton
night of passionate entanglement in a vat of
wonton
soup.

capricious, freakish idea

On a
whim
, the tournament directors decided to let the
wim
p play at
Wim
bledon.

crafty

Wile E
. Coyote uses
wily
methods of sneaking up on the Road Runner
while he
isn’t looking.

yearning;
wis
h
ful
with a hint of sadness

As he thought of his lost love, he
whistled
a
wistful
melody and drank a bottle of her perfume.

of or pertaining to golly-gee-whillikers

anger; rage

Elmer Fudd is full of
wrath
at that
wrath
cally wabbit that keeps eating his garden.

Sorry, there are no SAT words that begin with X.

delicious

Well, we didn’t want to cop out for two letters in a row!

My uncle was
valorous
, yet he was inclined to be quite
voluble
when faced with danger. His
verbose
,
vacuous
speeches terrified and bored his enemies. Certain
vindictive
individuals have attempted to
vilify
his reputation by insisting that he was a
vulnerable
wimp, but he has always managed to
vindicate
himself by
vehemently
verifying
the
veracity
of his claims of courage.

Anyway, one day while my uncle was
vacillating
over a choice of beverages, the
vainglorious
Victor Ventura burst in on him, extremely
vexed
. He voiced his message
vociferously
: “I consider you a vile swine, and in the future I will not hesitate to spray you with
vermicide
.”

“Pray tell,” said my uncle
vivaciously
, “what is the cause of your
vexation
?”

“I came here with a
voracious
appetite,” replied Victor, “and on a
whim
you
wantonly
denied me any food, you wretched worm.”

“
Wow
,” said my
wily
uncle
wistfully
, “you may as well spare me your
wrath
, because I don’t have anything
yummy
to offer you.”

crazy; in
sane

The
zany
antics of the jackasses from
Jackass
earned them their own feature-length movie.

enthusiasm

full of zeal

The
zealous
seal spun the ball with
zeal
.

peak; summit; acme (see
NADIR
,
zenith
’s antonym)

If the
Zenith
company could invent a TV that would change channels automatically whenever a show started getting stupid, that would be the
zenith
of television technology.

gusto; happy and vivacious enjoyment

If you use
Zest
soap, you will feel full of
zest
for the rest of the day. You will also feel
Zest
fully clean.

any of various tropical weevils of the genus
Zyzzyva
, often destructive to plants

Who cares about
zyzzyvas
? You are done with the word lists. Congratulations! Think of all the words you know now that you didn’t know before. Good work. You are going to rock on the critical reading section.

A
zany
,
zealous