SAT Vocabulary Jeopardy

This adjective describes a tone that is grimly mocking or scornful.

What is sardonic?

This adjective describes a mood of wistful longing for the past.

What is nostalgic?

This word describes a deep, lingering sadness, often thoughtful rather than sharp.

What is melancholy?

This short word describes humor that is dry and lightly mocking.

What is wry?

This adjective describes a mournful tone, like that of a poem lamenting the dead.

What is elegiac?

This persuasive appeal targets the audience's emotions.

What is pathos?

This persuasive appeal rests on the speaker's credibility and character.

What is ethos?

This fallacy misrepresents an opponent's position to make it easier to attack.

What is a straw man?

Admitting that an opponent has a valid point before answering it is called making this.

What is a concession?

This adjective describes an argument that seems plausible but is actually false or misleading.

What is specious?

Usually a verb, this word means to influence, while its look-alike is usually a noun meaning a result.

What is affect?

A speaker does this, suggesting without stating, while a listener infers.

What is imply?

This word means to complete or go well with something, while its sound-alike means to praise.

What is complement?

Properly meaning impartial or having nothing to gain, this word is often misused to mean bored.

What is disinterested?

This spelling means separate and distinct, while its sound-alike means careful and tactful.

What is discrete?

This Greek prefix meaning against begins the name of medicines that fight bacteria.

What is anti-?

This Latin root meaning to carry is found in words for bringing goods into a country and for the document you show at a border.

What is port?

This Greek root meaning love ends a word for a book lover and begins the name of the City of Brotherly Love.

What is phil?

This Latin root meaning good begins words for a helpful effect and for a person who gives money to a cause.

What is bene?

This Latin prefix meaning around begins a word for the distance around a circle.

What is circum-?

This adjective describes someone who stubbornly refuses to change their mind.

What is obstinate?

This adjective describes someone extremely careful about every small detail.

What is meticulous?

This adjective describes someone generous and forgiving, especially toward a rival.

What is magnanimous?

This adjective describes someone too eager to please or obey, to the point of fawning.

What is obsequious?

Named for a Roman god and a quick-moving metal, this adjective describes someone whose moods change unpredictably.

What is mercurial?

This is the central message or insight about life that a literary work conveys.

What is the theme?

This is a conclusion a reader draws from evidence rather than from a direct statement.

What is an inference?

This is a brief reference to a well-known person, place, event or work, such as calling a miser a Scrooge.

What is an allusion?

This is a statement that seems to contradict itself but reveals a truth.

What is a paradox?

This is the placing of two contrasting things side by side to highlight their differences.

What is juxtaposition?