When is your test? If it’s soon, I would spend a lot of time learning those root words as mentioned above. Have you tried POE- process of elimination. Sounds silly but its an important test taking skill and one you can practice. If I remember correctly, the Princeton SAT workbooks had a chapter on how to eliminate answers in the vocabulary sections.For any student looking to build their vocabulary I would recommend the classic- sometimes classics are harder to get in to than a recent YA book (ok, always…) but well worth the effort. Just have to find a good match- A good place to start is with Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (has a great Hitchcock film), The Once and Future King and anything by Agatha Christie, Jack London or George Orwell. A recent good one for vocabulary was Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.
@StandardizedGirl : If English is your second language, they expect you to have a lower SSAT score on the verbal sections than native-speaking applicants. That is okay. The TOEFL test results will give them a sense of whether your English is strong enough for you to handle the academics alongside native speakers, or whether you would need additional help/support (which may or may not be available at that particular school). Make sense?