GOOD is a widely used word used to describe things that are positive and desirable. So what is such as easy word doing on a difficult SAT vocabulary in context question? I’ll explain!
As you have probably already guessed, GOOD has a much less widely used secondary meaning. GOOD can mean CONSIDERABLE when it is used in specific phrases to indicate a large amount, size, or extent such as “a good deal” or a “good amount.”
SAT test writers found a passage in Charles Chesnutt’s 1905 novel The Colonel’s Dream that illustrates this lesser used meaning of GOOD. Here’s the passage and the question:
“Mr. Morton, the senior partner, who sat opposite Hale, was an older man – a safe guess would have placed him somewhere in the debatable ground between forty and fifty, of a good height, as could be seen even from the seated figure, the upper part of which was held erect with the unconscious ease which one associates with military training.”
Most vocabulary in context questions ask students to complete a text with the “most logical and precise word or phrase.” However, this type of vocabulary in context question asks test takers to use the text to determine what a word “most nearly means.”
The answer is CONSIDERABLE since Mr. Morton’s height is large enough to be worthy of attention. This is not an isolated question that will never show up again. The GOOD = CONSIDERABLE passage appeared on the May 2025, June 2026, and August 2026 SATs. It is now officially part of our select collection of High-Frequency words!
GOOD – can mean CONSIDERABLE when describing things that are large in size or extent