SAT Vocabulary

Extraneous—irrelevant Sometimes, we stress about really extraneous problems.

Maladroit—clumsy; unskillful My boss is such a maladroit and spills coffee all the time.

Scrupulous—careful; diligent; painstaking She is scrupulous with the sun and uses lots of sun screen.

Unequivocal—clear; obvious The instructions for checking diapers was pretty unequivocal.

Dichotomy—a division into two parts Mitosis is a type of dichotomy, as the cell divides into two parts.

Extrapolate—extend; predict on the basis of known data Based on the data, we can extrapolate that students who read over the summer have higher scores the next school year.

Malady—illness Smoking can lead to future maladies.

Pretentious—pompous; self-important The pretentious cat turns his nose up at non-organic tuna fish.

Extrinsic—irrelevant; on the outside Earning a trophy is a type of extrinsic motivation; it doesn’t work on everyone.

Inconsequential—unimportant; insignificant; negligible Pluto was downgraded from a planet because its size was determined to be inconsequential from other planets.

Cerebral—intellectual Reading books makes you cerebral.

Fallacious—false Explorers from long ago believed in a fallacious view of the world.

Inconspicuous—not easily seen; subtle; not noticeable Rabbits think they are inconspicuous by hiding their face in grass when danger approaches.

Paradigm—example; model; way of looking at things A person’s unique belief system is their own personal paradigm.

Unprecedented—never having happened before If these were real socks, this person’s feet would be unprecedented!

Anomaly—something which does not fit in a pattern; irregularity Watching Lil Wayne pour champagne on his new Galaxy phone is a technological anomaly!

Digress—wander off subject We could talk about how nice Homer looks in the suit, but then I would digress from our vocabulary words.

Paradox—apparently contradictory statement Aladdin had the ultimate paradox: “Gotta eat to live, gotta steal to eat.”

Unscathed—unharmed; intact; without a scratch Despite being killed in every episode, Kenny always returns unscathed.

Charlatan—trickster who claims knowledge he doesn’t have Most televangelists are charlatans; taking advantage of people’s faith.

Fanatical—obsessive; fixated Members of the KKK are fanatical toward their white supremacy ideals.

Indifferent—neutral; not outstanding She was very indifferent toward my new hair cut.

Paragon—a perfect example The irony of calling your restaurant the paragon when it has awful food is really hilarious.

Antagonistic—opposed; hostile; aggressive Nelson is very antagonistic toward his classmates.

Indigenous—native to a particular area Native Americans are truly the only indigenous group of people who can claim to be original to America.

Malleable—flexible; can be shaped People who are easily influenced to change their perceptions are truly malleable in personality. .

Paramount—of supreme importance Books are paramount to your success as a student.

Dilemma—puzzling situation Some experience a moral dilemma when deciding whether or not to return money they found.

Parasite—scrounger; animal which takes digested food from another Sadly, people are often the real parasites.

Serendipity—fortunate coincidence; unsought discovery It is simply serendipitous that you came to school on a note taking day 