新SAT词汇

新SAT的目标之一是减少生冷词汇，专门考察词汇的Sentence Completion 取消了，取而代之的是passage-based 对语境词汇的考察。

“经典词汇”，恰恰是那些在不同语境中有细微含义上区别的词汇。很难通过纯粹的背单词解决，一定要靠阅读，尤其是精读泛读结合的经典阅读来解决。

不过，先集中学习一下，然后再通过精读泛读巩固，我觉得也是个可行的方法。俺家目前就是这个方法，效果还不错。但是，集中学习也要有方法，背List效果最差，好的方法是借助词根词缀学习,外加大量从经典作品中抽取的例句。推荐 TheFreeLibrary.com ，它有个Usagesamples，里面有大量示范一个词在经典作品中的例句。

新SAT要求的文献阅读，里面经典词随处可见。（这些文献的另一个语言特点是长难句）。

From Federalist Paper I (chosen at random)

To the People ofthe State of New York:

AFTER anunequivocal experience of the inefficiency of thesubsisting federal government, you are called uponto deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States ofAmerica. The subject speaks its own importance;comprehending in its consequences nothing lessthan the existence of the union, the safety andwelfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empirein many respects the most interesting in the world. It has beenfrequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to thepeople of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide theimportant question, whether societies of men are really capable ornot of establishing good government from reflection and choice, orwhether they are forever destined to depend for their politicalconstitutions on accident and force. If there be any truth in theremark, the crisis at which we are arrived may withpropriety be regarded as the era in which thatdecision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shallact may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the generalmisfortune of mankind.

This idea willadd the inducements ofphilanthropy to those of patriotism, to heightenthe solicitude which all considerate and good menmust feel for the event. Happy will it be if our choice should bedirected by a judicious estimate of our trueinterests, unperplexed andunbiased by considerations not connected with thepublic good. But this is a thing more ardently tobe wished than seriously to be expected. The plan offered to ourdeliberations affects too many particular interests,innovates upon too many local institutions, not toinvolve in its discussion a variety of objects foreign to itsmerits, and of views, passions and prejudices little favorable tothe discovery of truth.

Among the mostformidable of the obstacles which the newConstitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguishedthe obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State toresist all changes which may hazard adiminution of the power,emolument, and consequence of the offices theyhold under the State establishments; and the perverted ambition ofanother class of men, who will either hope toaggrandize themselves by the confusions of theircountry, or will flatter themselves with fairer prospects ofelevation from the subdivision of the empire into several partialconfederacies than from its union under onegovernment.