陆景仰:揭秘SAT特色词汇
要想在SAT中斩获高分，阅读部分至关重要。要提高阅读的正确率，首先要读懂文章，而SAT文章中的这些特色词汇往往阻碍了考生对整篇文章的理解，如果理解不当，甚至会出现把文章main idea读反了的情况。所以，让我们先了解下SAT阅读中常考的特色词汇。
1 elite,elitist,elitism
字典显示“精英”，但有时要提醒自己看它的hidden assumption是不是可以引申为看不起屌丝的高富帅白富美，是不是指向snobbishness.
比如06年01月的开头为Ridiculing television 的文章，20题说academic认为Plato的特点是snobbishness， 在41行就有One academic suggests Plato was merely an elitist，之后详细讲解他反对诗歌戏剧的原因是它们是mass entertainment or popular culture.这些都体现了正确选项snobbishness。
翻到OG521页，passage2的18行，Yet,there is an influential movement,representing the consensus of the profession’s elite，从elite当中也能看出作者反对这个movement，进而看出两篇对比文章是对立的关系，从而解出第9,11,12这三道考两篇文章关系 或Passage 2 的题目。
翻到OG844页，passage 2 的54行The flouting of conventional wisdom and refusal to conform carry with them many risks. This is nowhere more true than in the Art World, certain quarters of which tend to be very much doctrinaire and elitist. 这里从doctrinaire and elitist看出作者不喜欢art world，也就更好理解了后文面对批评,I disregarded them.I was neither shaken nor surprised.I remain unruffled.这些话。保持淡定不理睬别人黑他，就是此文作者的main idea。
2 wistful
字典显示“渴望的”，但这种渴望不是要SAT要考2400的渴望，这是种淡淡的忧伤，惆怅的渴望。看到wistful就反应“惆怅的”！
比如06年01月开头是“Gorgia was to be married”的小说，11题The second paragraph suggests that Georgia believes the "proper state" (line 19) would be one of 就选wistfulness。从原文She had felt queer about that thing of taking her last assignment, though it was hard to reach just the proper state, for the last story related to pork-packers, and pork-packing is not a setting favorable to sentimental regrets. It was just like the newspaper business not even to allow one a little sentimental harrowing over one's exodus from it. But the time for gentle melancholy came later on when she was sorting her things at her desk just before leaving中的sentimental regrets和gentle melancholy 中能看出来。
又比如真题中一篇小说For my mother, though, home would always be China. In Irvine she lived among strangers, unable to speak their language. Whenever she talked about happy times, they were during her childhood in that distant land. A wistful smile would soften her face as she told me about sleeping and playing with her sister in the attic above her parents' bedroom. 其中wistful smile体现出代移民四年家乡无法融入异国的心情。
SAT小说还曾考过狄更斯的Dombey and Son，原文也有Dombey scratched his head and looked wistful。所以考生要注意此词。
3 condescending
字典显示“屈尊的”，很多考生认为屈尊的就是谦虚的，但屈尊的先决条件是这人觉得自己很尊贵，才要屈就一下。所以它的意思应该记“有优越感的”。
翻到OG 649页23题的正确选项condescendingly tolerant，就可从作者在段说If the new art is not accessible to everyone, which certainly seems to be the case, this implies that its impulses are not of a genetically human kind. It is an art not for people in general but for a special class who may not be better but who are evidently different.中的“现代艺术不是给普通大众看的而是给special class看的”体现出来。
再比如OG中那篇主人公Henry Mulcahy被炒鱿鱼的小说，11题In context. Mulcahy's "condolatory smile" (lines 32-33) is most probably an expression of both
的正确选项是condescending sympathy amused scorn。Condescending可从本段中的as an intellectual作为一个知识分子，和a kind of pity, mingled with contempt and dry amusement.中看出。
翻到OG第十套的长对比passage1 段说They (academic historians )treat it condescendingly as a harmless but amusing example of American vulgarity— a kind of patriotic Disneyland. But several visits there have persuaded me that it is significant in ways that its promoters did not advertise.读到condescendingly的时候就要提醒自己是不是作者在字里行间已经流露出了对academic historians的反对，果然后面But那句就进行了转折。所以只有把SAT高频词理解透彻了，才能做预判，才能提高阅读速度和正确率。
4 concession,concede,qualification
Concession是让步，可是有考生不明白让步是什么，简单来说就是句子里的“虽然，即使，当然，诚然”部分，后面的but才是梗。比如“虽然你是个 好人，但我们还是分手比较好”。所以让步是为了让自己的观点不那么偏激不那么有争议的一种写法。有一种“虽然我能从某种程度上理解其他人的想法，但其实这 些想法都有不对的地方，我觉得事情应该是这样的”感觉。比如2014年1月北美的short paired passage里Certainly some new products are marginally better than previous ones,but few take the necessary creative leaps that encourage manufacturing that truly is in harmony with the ways of the Earth.问你Certainly some new products are marginally better than previous ones是干嘛用的，正确选项就是make a concession.
类似的让步请翻到OG 404页第六段从yes开始but之前，OG394页passage2 最后一段Of course开始but之前。
知道concession，考生往往还不知道它的动词时concede，于是bye bye with正确选项concede a point before a rebuttal了。所以记住concession的小伙伴concede吧。
类似concession的词还有qualification。大部分考生在刚接触SAT的时候是肯定不明什么是qualification,什么叫 qualify a statement，什么语气叫qualified。其实就是限制一个说法，就是有所保留。比如真题一篇讲rock and roll的长对比里Granted,within rock there are countercultural trends,but rock permeates our entire culture that other styles of music are considered to be on the fringe,admired by small subcultural groups。Granted是诚然，所以问这句话用到了什么，选qualification。
5 base,compromised,mean,despicable
这些词的意思都是卑鄙的。这是在词汇题里常考的一组意群。也出现在原文中。
如翻到OG488页Junk is there to entertain on the basest, most compromised of levels.词汇题问compromised的意思，从逗号得知它是平行约等于base，故选degraded。或者美国队长2里美国队长发现神盾局有 内奸，就说We are compromised.
如真题中We are humiliated by what is powerful and mean but awed by what is powerful and noble.从but得知取反所以mean 也就是not noble
翻到OG426页Shirley那篇小说，就有He has run a course of despicable, commonplace profligacy。如果记不住就想小黄人吧，小黄人的英语片名就叫despicable me.
