- Tier two words will be tested.
Tier two words appear frequently in written texts, but are seldom used orally. They are found across a variety of domains.
In contrast, tier one words are generally learned through conversation, and tier three words are either limited to a certain domain of knowledge or are not used frequently.
- There are too many of these high utility words to teach directly, so "students must develop the skills to gain the rest of what they need indirectly from their reading,
and instruction should offer students opportunities to practice and nurture these skills in addition to direct vocabulary teaching."
- "The exam will assess an in-depth command of words and their multiple meanings and require sensitivity to context."
Since vocabulary study is more effective when it reinforces words encountered elsewhere than when it is pure memorization. Verbalworkout.com provides an easy way to reinforce words encountered when reading novels. You might like to look at this suggested way to
use verbalworkout.com to enhance the natural vocabulary growth that occurs while reading.
As this page is written, it is too soon to know how effectively students can cram for the vocabulary in the redesigned SAT test. Cramming was not a very effective strategy in the old SAT where the time was probably be better spent reviewing for other parts of the test. Still, you might like to look at
Top 100 Study Words for Standardized Tests like the SAT® or ACT®. Words are listed by how frequently they are found on weighted SAT/tier two vocabulary study lists. There is a link to more ranked words at the bottom of the list.