The SAT is getting a big makeover. Yesterday, the College Board announced a sweeping redesign of the exam. Among the changes? More obscure vocabulary words, once a hallmark of the SAT, are out.
Instead, the exam will focus on words more commonly used in college courses and in the workplace, words like "synthesis," "distill," and "transform." Could this be the end of "grandiloquence"? That's an SAT word for you, it means "lofty, pompous, language."
We asked our listeners what words they remembered learning while studying for the SAT:
- Lisa Harris: Avuncular
- Ryan Thomson: Obsequious, Ameliorate
- Sarah Johnson: Jurisprudence
- Barbara Werney Kurzman: Salubrious, Lugubrious
- Kelly O'Connell TerBush: Tintinnabulation
- Nancy Sassaman: Fulminate
- Shanin Ziemer: Crepuscular
- Miles Austin Cox: Panacea
Listener Jennifer Bier Thompson wrote in and said, "the sheer fact that I have no memory of any of the words I so studiously labored over, proves how ludicrious SATs are." But are they ludicrous?
We're joined now by Geoff Nunberg, a linguist and a professor at UC Berkeley's School of Information.
Do you remember learning difficult or obscure words while studying for the SATs? Tell us in the comment section below which word(s) you remember learning. Thanks!