← SSAT® Upper Level

Verbal: Synonyms

The 30 synonym questions, the roots that crack an unfamiliar word, and the plus-one minus-a-quarter scoring rule that governs every section of the test.

16 topics · 63 questions

Each topic is a path, not a menu: work down it in order and every question builds on the one above. Click any of them to watch the answer draw itself.

The Guessing Penalty: One Point Right, a Quarter Point Wrong

  1. How it worksHow does a raw score get built from plus one per correct answer, zero per omission, and minus a quarter per wrong one?
  2. Worked exampleFind the raw score of a student who answers 42 of 60 verbal questions correctly, gets 12 wrong, and omits 6.
  3. Worked exampleFind the raw score of a student who answers all 40 reading questions and gets exactly 24 of them right.
  4. Common mistakeWhy doesn't the advice to never leave a blank work on the Upper Level SSAT the way it does on the SAT or ACT?
  5. Going furtherWhat changes about the whole guessing calculation on the Elementary Level SSAT, where a wrong answer costs nothing?
Your turneasy1 of 3
On the 60-question verbal section a student answers 38 questions correctly, gets 12 wrong, and omits the rest. Scoring is +1 for each correct answer, -1/4 for each wrong one and 0 for each omission. What is her raw score?

Expected Value: When an Educated Guess Pays

  1. How it worksHow do you turn eliminating two choices into an average number of points that one guess is worth?
  2. Worked exampleFind the average points gained per question from guessing among three remaining choices when a wrong answer costs a quarter point.
  3. Common mistakeWhy doesn't a blind guess among five choices lose points on average, even though each wrong answer costs a quarter point?
  4. Going furtherWhat happens to the value of an educated guess when the two choices you eliminated were not actually wrong?
  5. Ties togetherHow does the guessing rule change the way you spend the last two minutes of a 30-minute verbal section?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
On the last 16 questions of a verbal section a student crosses off choices until 3 plausible ones remain on each, then guesses. Using +1 for a correct answer and -1/4 for a wrong one, how many raw points should she expect to gain in total?

Predicting Your Own Synonym First

  1. How it worksHow do you build your own definition of a word before looking at any choice, and then match it?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through predicting a synonym for candid before choosing among frank, rude, quiet, brave and hidden.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't the choice that feels most familiar usually the right synonym?
  4. Going furtherWhat do you do when your predicted meaning matches none of the five choices at all?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Before looking at any choice, a student defines ABATE from the 6 sentences she has met it in, all about storms and noise, as to die down after being strong. Which choice matches that prediction? ABATE:

Connotation: Splitting Two Choices That Both Fit

  1. How it worksHow does a word's positive or negative charge split two choices that share one dictionary meaning?
  2. Common mistakeWhy isn't a dictionary definition enough to choose between two choices that both list the same meaning?
  3. Worked exampleFind the better synonym for inquisitive between curious and nosy, and show what settles it.
  4. Going furtherWhat happens to a neutral word like ambitious when it sits among positively and negatively charged choices?
Your turneasy1 of 3
A biography reports that the millionaire left the housekeeper of 16 years nothing and would not spend 69 dollars on heating his own house. The author calls him PARSIMONIOUS. Which choice best replaces that word?

Intensity: How Strong the Word Is

  1. How it worksHow do you place a word on a strength scale and use that scale to reject an over-strong choice?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through ranking warm, hot, scalding and tepid on one heat scale and picking the synonym for sweltering.
  3. Going furtherWhat changes when the tested word sits at the extreme end of a scale and every choice offered is milder?
  4. Common mistakeWhy doesn't a stronger word count as a better synonym just because it means more of the same thing?
Your turneasy1 of 3
A diner waited 10 minutes for a table and was annoyed; after another 78 minutes with no explanation he was LIVID. Which choice best replaces LIVID?

Register: Formal, Neutral and Everyday Words

  1. How it worksHow does the formality level of a word rule out a choice that means exactly the right thing?
  2. Worked exampleFind the best synonym for reprimand among scold, yell, nag, praise and correct, using formality to break the tie.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't the most impressive-sounding choice the safest pick on a synonym question?
Your turneasy1 of 3
A school handbook says a teacher may REPRIMAND a student after 6 unexcused absences in a term of 14 weeks. Which choice best replaces REPRIMAND?

High-Frequency Latin Roots

  1. How it worksHow do the Latin roots vid, dict, port and spec build hundreds of English words out of a few pieces?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through cracking circumspect from circum and spec without ever having seen the word before.
  3. Worked exampleFind the meaning of magnanimous by splitting it into magn and anim and rebuilding it from the parts.
  4. Going furtherWhat happens when a root drifts, so that nice no longer means the ignorance its Latin ancestor named?
Your turneasy1 of 3
A manager who checked 7 references and read the contract 4 times before signing is called CIRCUMSPECT. Splitting the word into circum and spec, which choice fits?

High-Frequency Greek Roots

  1. How it worksHow do chron, phon, graph, path and log combine into words the test expects you to decode cold?
  2. Common mistakeWhy isn't apathy a word about disease when it shares its root with pathology?
  3. Worked exampleWalk me through building anachronism out of ana and chron and reading its meaning off the parts.
  4. Going furtherWhat happens when a Greek root and a Latin root end up inside one English word, as in television?
Your turneasy1 of 3
A film set in the year 1309 shows a character checking a wristwatch, and a critic calls the watch an ANACHRONISM. Reading ana, meaning back or against, and chron, meaning time, which choice fits?

Prefixes That Flip or Sharpen a Meaning

  1. How it worksHow do the negating prefixes un, in, dis, a and mis differ from intensifiers like over and super?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through why inflammable means the same as flammable while inhospitable reverses its root.
  3. Going furtherWhat happens to the prefix in when it meets a root starting with l or r, turning in-legal into illegal?
  4. Worked exampleFind the meaning of intractable by stripping off the in prefix and reading what is left behind.
Your turnmedium1 of 3
After 16 hours of negotiation the two sides had moved on 2 of the twelve points, and the mediator called the dispute INTRACTABLE. Stripping off the in- prefix, which choice fits?

Suffixes and the Part of Speech They Signal

  1. How it worksHow do the endings tion, ment, ous, ate and ize sort a word into noun, adjective or verb?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through why obdurate must be an adjective and how that alone kills two of five choices.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't every word ending in ly an adverb, given friendly, lovely and costly?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
Meeting OBDURATE for the first time, in a sentence about a landlord who turned down 7 written requests over 9 months, a student wants to use the ending to narrow the five choices. Which reading is right?

Words That Work as More Than One Part of Speech

  1. How it worksHow do you test a synonym choice against both the noun and the verb reading of the same word?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through flag as a synonym item when the choices are banner, tire, wave, signal and droop.
  3. Common mistakeWhy doesn't the most common part of speech automatically win when the choices point at a rarer one?
  4. Going furtherWhat happens when four of five choices are verbs and the fifth is a noun, on a word that can be either?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
After 20 miles a runner began to FLAG, and she finished 15 minutes behind her usual time. Which choice best replaces FLAG here?

Secondary Meanings of Familiar Words

  1. How it worksHow does a word's rarer sense get tested when every choice matches a different sense of it?
  2. Worked exampleFind the synonym for arrest when the five choices are stop, jail, capture, seize and delay.
  3. Worked exampleWalk me through novel as a synonym item when the choices are book, fresh, long, dull and true.
  4. Common mistakeWhy doesn't picking the meaning you learned first work on a word that carries three or four senses?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
A committee reviewed 23 proposals and called one of them NOVEL, noting that nothing like it had been tried in 46 years. Which choice best replaces NOVEL?

The Lookalike Trap

  1. How it worksHow does a wrong choice get built to echo the letters of the tested word instead of its meaning?
  2. Common mistakeWhy isn't noisome a word about noise, and how does a test writer use that kind of false friend?
  3. Worked exampleWalk me through choosing between prosecute and persecute as the synonym for harass.
  4. Worked exampleFind the synonym for venal among corrupt, deadly, spiteful, brave and wordy, and say why deadly is bait.
Your turnmedium1 of 3
An inspector who took payments from 7 different contractors over 5 years is described as VENAL. Which choice best replaces VENAL?

The Opposite Trap

  1. How it worksHow does an antonym decoy exploit the fact that opposites live in the same corner of meaning space?
  2. Worked exampleFind the synonym for laud among praise, blame, shout, ignore and question, and say why blame was planted.
  3. Going furtherWhat happens when a word is its own opposite, like sanction or cleave, and both senses are offered?
Your turneasy1 of 3
At a ceremony lasting 48 minutes a principal LAUDED 9 teachers by name. Which choice best replaces LAUDED?

Working a Synonym You Have Never Seen

  1. How it worksHow do you stack root, prefix, charge and any half-remembered phrase into a guess good enough to eliminate?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through attacking obstreperous with no memory of it, using ob, streper and the sound of the word.
  3. Going furtherWhat happens when every tool fails and you are left with three plausible choices and a quarter-point risk?
  4. Common mistakeWhy doesn't the sound of a word reliably give its meaning, as with pulchritude, which means beauty?
Your turnmedium1 of 3
A teacher's note says a class of 28 became OBSTREPEROUS in the last 11 minutes of the period. Using ob, meaning against, and the noisy sound of the word, which choice fits?

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