Weekly English Words with Alisha - Top SAT words

Top SA... Oh, hi! Sorry, I forgot to say hi again. Hi, everybody, and welcome back to

Weekly Words. This week the topic is going to be... SAT words. Words that students who

are studying for the SAT. The SAT is a kind of college preparatory test or a test that

students take usually to apply for colleges. The words are typically fairly challenging

for high school students, and these are some other words that might cause trouble for some

people. So let's begin.

The first word is “assiduous.” “Assiduous” is a word that means somebody who is “persistent”

or who is a always trying to do their best to work really, really hard. You might have

a coworker who is “assiduous.” I suppose you could also use it if you're just describing

anything that's hard-working, like ants, for example, you might say, “Ants are very assiduous

creatures. They work hard. They can lift more than their own body weight.” Okay, that’s

pretty good.

Next. “Intuitive.” “Intuitive.” Someone who is “intuitive” is someone who has

a good instinct, or they’re able to sense what the right thing is to do without, you

know, having to be taught what the right thing is. So let's say, maybe you’re going surfing

for the first time, and it comes to you really, really easily after just your first couple

tries. Your friends might say, “Wow, you're really intuitive.” You know how to do this

without, you know, having to take a lesson or anything. Great job! A good trait to be intuitive.

“Precocious.” “Precocious” is another usually a positive word. “Precocious is

usually used for children, children who are kind of strangely talented

at something even when they're very, very little. So maybe you've seen on YouTube a

kid who can play the piano extremely well even though he or she is five years old.

We might say, “He’s precocious,” or “She's a precocious child.” She can do

so much but she's so young. It’s usually a very impressive thing that the kids are

able to do.

Alright, the next one is “evanescent.” “Evanescent.” Evanescent. “Evanescent

is another adjective which means something that fades away rather quickly or something

that's very short-lived. Oh, to be very romantic about it, you might say, “The scent of her

perfume was very evanescent.” You could smell it for a brief moment, and then it faded

away. Ooh, that was kinda nice.

The next word is “anecdote.” An “anecdote” is usually some kind of a short, funny story

that’s a retelling of an event that happened to you. It might be a written story or a spoken

story. “Oh! Wanna hear an anecdote about my last trip to Bali? It was hilarious.”

I don’t know that I’d ever say that though. It's not something you’d use so much in

casual conversation. I feel like a critic might write this word about someone else’s

writing. “The anecdotes she chooses to include in her writing are very humorous,” for example.

Okay, well, we learned a few SAT words that, um, students might have trouble with when

they're studying for the test in their high school years. I hope that you find some of

these words useful and can use them in your daily life as well. Thanks for joining us

this week, and I'll see you again next time. Bye-bye!