1. Hot SAT Words Lessons 21-30

2. LESSON # 29 Tricky Twins & Triplets! Words that Sound and Look Alike but Have Different Meanings

3. ACRID Adj. bitter, harsh

4. ACRID ACRID exhaust fumes from the traffic inside the tunnel made me cough. The comedian’s ACRID humor rubs salt into many wounds.

5. ARID Adj. dry, lacking water

6. ARID The arroyo once had running water in it, but now it is ARID. ARID air inside the plane dries my skin.

7. AESTHETIC Adj. having to do with artistic beauty

8. AESTHETIC Betty gets her sense of AESTHETICS from her mother, who is a successful artist and designer. There is something AESTHETICALLY wrong with that painting; it pushes you away instead of drawing you in.

9. ASCETIC n. A person who refrains from indulging in earthly pleasures

10. ASCETIC Why would anyone claiming to be an ASCETIC own five wristwatches and a suitcase full of jewelry?

11. ATHEISTIC Adj. Without belief in any god

12. ATHEISTIC Although James was reared a strict Catholic, he became an ATHEIST in college. Communism is ATHEISTIC.

13. AMBIGUOUS Adj. hard to understand; unclear; open to more than one interpretation

14. AMBIGUOUS The author leaves the passage AMBIGUOUS because he wants you, the reader, to decide what it means.

15. AMBIVALENT Adj. having conflicted feelings or opinions about something; unsure

16. AMBIVALENT Rose feels AMBIVALENT about the trip. Part of her wants to go; part of her wants to stay home. AMBIVALENCE paralyzes Penny; she can’t make up her mind about anything.

17. COALESCE v. To have different opinions join together; fuse; converge

18. COALESCE By the end of the meeting, the various viewpoints had somehow COALESCED into a coherent policy. Gravity forced billions of atoms to COALESCE into a single lump of rock.

19. CONVALESCE V. To recover from an illness

20. CONVALESCE A CONVALESCENCE of two months kept Joe from his job. Grandma is CONVALESCING from a broken hip.

21. DELUSION N. A false opinion or belief

22. DELUSION To expect to get into Yale with an 880 SAT score is nothing but a DELUSION. The story tells of a lowly clerk who has DELUDED himself into thinking he’s the king of Spain.

23. ALLUSION Adj. an indirect reference, often to literature or a source with which an educated person would be familiar

24. ALLUSION The book is hard to read unless you understand the author’s ALLUSIONS to Greek and Roman mythology. She ALLUDED to Jefferson’s penchant for architectural design.

25. ILLLUSION Adj. Something unreal that gives the appearance of reality

26. ILLUSION

27. Although he can barely draw a straight line, Morris developed the ILLUSION that he’s a great artist. He’s DELUDED!