Up Your Score (25 page)

We’re not sure what this is, but there’s a glistening drop of it in every little Cert.

This won’t be on the test, but try repeating it five times quickly out loud.

to filch, pilfer, loot, purloin, peculate

You know that
rob
means “steal,” but do you know all the words in the definition? Each is a different kind of stealing. Go filch a dictionary and look up the different connotations of each word.

having a healthy, reddish color (
ruddy
rhymes with bloody)

When you get a facial, the beautician makes your face muddy so that it will be
ruddy
.

to chew cud (this definition won’t be on the SAT) to think a lot about; cogitate

Note:
The definitions are related. “To think a lot about something” is kind of like “chewing something over in your mind.” Also, when cows are chewing their cud, they look like they’re thinking.

The physicist went into the laboratory
room ’n’ ate
cupcakes while
ruminating
about how to put the filling inside Twinkies.

He was
recumbent
on his bed,
ruminating
on his
renascent
affair with the countess. She had left him and then
redressed
their relationship by returning, and they had reached a
rapprochement
. Now that she was
reciprocating
his love, he was once again the happiest man in the
realm
. Or was he?

There was a rap on the door and the air was suddenly
redolent
of her perfume. “Darling,” she said, opening the door, her face
refulgent
with rapture. He frowned as she kissed him, and she laughed. “Really. Don’t be such a
recalcitrant
child. You’re being altogether too
reticent
.” She kissed him again.

He remained
refractory
and refused to smile. She came over and reclined next to him. “I’m sorry I left you. I had to. I needed room . . . ” She began
recapitulating
the
relevant
parts of the
recondite
explanation she had given when she left. He did not respond.

Suddenly there was an explosion on the street below. Riotous sounds reverberated through the air. The countess strode swiftly to the window.

“It’s the Roman army. They’ve been threatening to
raze
the city and now they’re on a
rampage
.” A group of soldiers began to batter the front door. “Our only recourse is to run to the roof as rapidly as we can,” she
ratiocinated
. She climbed to the roof and crept over to the neighboring building. He hesitated
at the gap between the buildings, momentarily paralyzed by the
redoubtable
distance to the ground. Then he leapt across, and they raced over the roofs, with the
rapacious
soldiers running
rampant
through the streets below,
ravaging
the city. “
Remorseless
rogues,” she muttered. “They’ll change their tune later when they have to
rectify
all the damage they’re doing.”

“Undoubtedly they’ve
rationalized
their behavior by saying it was the only route left open for them,” he replied.

They rested a moment, trying to recover from the exertion. Their faces were
ruddy
.

“You’re wonderfully quick,” he remarked.

“I can’t
refute
that. I’m also
ravenous
. We’ll have to risk a reappearance.”

The outskirts of town were quiet. They slipped into a restaurant. They were led to a table and gratefully sat down. “Now listen here,” he scolded, sipping his red wine. “I want some assurance that you won’t run off again and leave me rueing the day I met you.”

“Whatever are you
ranting
about?” she retorted.

He
reiterated
his request, becoming riled.

She laughed. “Darling, you’re being ridiculous as well as
redundant
. It’s such a bore, really. Waiter, there’s a drop of
Retsyn
in my
rhubarb
soup. Please be good enough to remove it.” She turned to him again. “Relax. I’m here now, and so is our repast, at last.”

long adventure story

Titanic
is the
soggy saga
of a boatload of beautiful people hitting a really big ice cube.

wise

As age makes people more
sagacious
, parts of their body begin to
sag
.

lecherous; erotically stimulating

“Ooooo, that’s
so luscious
,” he said, licking his plump red lips
salaciously
.

reddish, blood-colored

The fierce black bull’s hopes
sank when
he saw his
sanguine
wound.

optimistic; cheerful

“I’m so glad to be an arctic bird,”
sang Gwen
the
sanguine
penguin.

insufficient; small (often used in expressions like “The
scantily
clad models were displaying the fall line of underwear.”)

Food is
scanty
in the
shanty’s
pantry.

inspection; study; careful searching

An inspection of Canadian police is a
scrutiny
of the Mounties.

to soothe, calm, or tranquilize

something, usually a drug, that
sedates

In
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,
sedatives
are given to
sedate
Jack Nicholson.

conduct or language inciting rebellion against authority

Karl Marx’s publisher rejected Marx’s first manuscript of
The Communist Manifesto,
saying, “Thi
s
edition
does not contain enough
sedition
.”

to separate, set apart, isolate

Tired of having his SAT studies interrupted, Larry hired a boat and went on a
sea quest
for a desert island where he could
sequester
himself for a semester.

humbly yielding; submissive

The
serv
ants were
vile
and
servile
.

lazy; showing lack of motivation; incompetent

The
shiftless
secretary couldn’t type capital letters. (Get it?)

happening at the same time

I will now attempt to rub cheese on my chest while
simultaneously
drinking salsa through a straw and juggling ostrich eggs.

foreboding of evil

Note:
Sinister
means “left” in Latin. In ancient times the left side was considered unlucky—the side from which evil would approach. This notion survives today in phrases such as
right-hand man
and
left-handed compliment.
Six
sinister
sisters scared seven silly senators. (Say this ten times fast.)

doubting; disbelieving

You think you can e
scape tickle
torture? I’m
skeptical
.

indolence; inactivity

“I’m at a loss to explain my
sloth
,” confessed the lazy, two-toed furry animal hanging languidly in the tree.

messy; characteristic of a
slo
b

Remember:
Whenever “love” gets in the middle of anything, it gets messy.

Unless you’re Rachael Ray, your
oven
may look
slovenly
after you make Sweet and Tasty 800 Bars (see
page 319
).

dark; dull; gloomy

The remorseful b
omber
was
somber
when he realized what he had done.

sleep-inducing

The other SAT books are
soporific
; ours is sophomoric.

thinly spread or distributed; not crowded

I was still hungry after eating at the fancy restaurant. The food was arranged
sparsely
and the gaps on the plate were filled with
parsley
.

not moving or flowing; motionless,
sta
tionary

to be
stagnant

The air in SAT testing halls is often
stagnant
, which perhaps explains why the proctors look stale and crusty.

On the SAT, this probably would not refer to the fuzzy white dots that show up on your TV when your cable goes out nor to the effect produced when you rub a balloon across your head. Instead, it will probably mean
having no motion; at rest;
stat
ionary.

The contents of our
attic
are
static
; they haven’t changed in years.

fixed or unchanging

No matter how many times we tried to fix the clock, it
stayed
fast
. It was
steadfast
.

faithful

One must be
steadfast
on Yom Kippur, and not eat. In
stead, fast
.

Look up this word in an
American Heritage Dictionary,
New College Edition (the first edition). The picture is the most phallic image you will ever see in a venerable reference book.

showing little emotion or pain; emotionally
solid

Even though I loved my pet
stinkhorn
, I tried to be
stolid
when they
stole it
.

the act of yielding to the authority of another

The submarine captain demanded the
submission
of the sailors on the
sub
mission
.

to overthrow or undermine the power of

The prizewinning poet was accused of trying to
subvert
his poetry when he started writing his verses on submarine sandwiches.

juicy; interesting

Eve
suck
ed on the
succulent
forbidden fruit.

right to vote; franchise

Before 1920, women
suffer
ed from a lack of
suffrage
. But the
suffragettes
changed all that and now women can rock the vote along with men.