<p>My Q and A Service copy of the May SAT finally arrived. So this gave me another opportunity to find out which Vocab lists/books were effective and which were ineffective.</p>
<p>The following 20 words were answers on the May SAT: Euphonious, Veneration, Parochial, Resurgence, Plethora, Facilitate, Tenacity, Forerunner, Paucity, Clandestine, Preternatural, Satirize, Denizen, Anecdote, Fortuitous, Shrewd, Autonomous, Confounded, Base and Paradox. Here is how the 12 lists/books I have been analyzing performed on the May 2008 SAT:</p>
<li>Direct Hits Vocabulary: 434 words; 10 hits; 43.4 words per hit</li>
<li>Rocket Review Core Words: 323 words; 7 hits; 46.1 words per hit</li>
<li>Barron’s Hot Words: 396 words; 8 hits; 49.5 words per hit</li>
<li>PR’s Hit Parade: 253 words; 4 hits; 63.2 words per hit</li>
<li>Barrons High Frequency List: 385 words; 4 hits; 96.25 words per hit</li>
<li>Kaplan’s SAT book list: 500 words; 4 hits; 125.0 words per hit</li>
<li>SparkNotes: 1000 words; 8 hits; 125.0 words per hit</li>
<li>PR’s Word Smart: 1505 words; 10 hits; 150.5 words per hit</li>
<li>SuperKids: 1120 words; 7 hits; 160.0 words per hit</li>
<li>Kaplan’s SAT Score Raising Dictionary: 1000 words; 5 hits; 200 words per hit</li>
<li>Barron’s Mini-Dictionary: 3500 words; 17 hits; 205.8 words per hit</li>
<li>TestMaster’s Small List: 254 words; 1 hit; 254 words per hit</li>
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<p>The May SAT contained a number of difficult words. For example, none of the 12 sources listed above had BASE, EUPHONIOUS or FORERUNNER.</p>
<p>For the third straight SAT (March, May and June), Direct Hits emerged as the top performing list/book. Direct Hits has lived up to its name with 17 of 19 in March, 13 of 21 in June and 10 of 20 in May.</p>
<p>Rocket Review’ Core Words and PR’s Hit Parade continue to perform well. Meanwhile, TestMaster’s Little List only had one (autonomous) hit. So if you learned all 254 words on the TestMaster’s little list all you got was one hit.</p>