If you zone out and see “elected president” followed by “Supreme
Commander,” you could think that Eisenhower served as the Supreme
Commander after his presidency. Not only would your history teacher feel a
sudden chill pass through her chest, but you would get the answer wrong! So
look out for critical direction and causality markers like “before,” “unless,”
“despite,” “after,” etc.
Rhetoric and Vocabulary Questions
Rhetoric is a very fancy word. When the Duchess of York wakes up each
morning, she says the word rhetoric in a slow drawl, before eating a breakfast of
crumpets, Darjeeling tea, and rose petals. But in truth, rhetoric just refers to the
way words are employed.
While the old SAT asked you for the meanings of words, the new test will ask
you about how words are being used in the context of the passage.
• The main effect of the phrase “before his eyes” is . . .
• With which of the following phrases does the author shift from telling a
story to establishing an argument?
• If the word “irony” were replaced with “earnestness” in the opening
sentence of the passage, how would it change the meaning?
The crucial strategy here is to read the phrase or word IN THE CONTEXT of
the passage. Words can mean many different things in different contexts (for
example, you can inhale air and you can also air your grievances—same word,
different contextual meaning). Carefully read the sentence in which you find the
phrase. If the word’s meaning is still elusive, go ahead and reread the whole
paragraph.
No matter how well you know the word, it’s wise to go back and look at the
sentence or paragraph rather than answer based solely on your knowledge of the
word because maybe the author used it in some unusual way (for example,
sarcastically).
Note that while the SAT used to test students on very obscure words you were
unlikely to ever encounter in real life (ever heard of bloviate or gobemouche?),
many of the questions on the revised SAT will ask about short, seemingly simple
words, like taste. The Serpent is NOT trying to do you a favor. These little words
are sneaky because they have multiple meanings depending on the context, so
don’t assume that taste means “flavor” just because that’s the first definition that
comes to mind—it could also refer to experience (“He finally got a taste of real