INCIPIENT is a challenging word that is used to describe a process or trend that is in an early stage and thus about to happen or develop.
The November 2025 SAT marked the debut of INCIPIENT as the answer to a difficult Module 2 vocabulary in context question. The passage explained that Charles Darwin coined the term “incipient species” to describe a population within a larger species that is in the process of diverging into a distinct new animal or plant. So, an “INCIPIENT species” is in the beginning or initial stage of its evolution.
SAT test writers revisited the study of biological processes in another difficult Module 2 question on the October 2026 SAT. Let’s take a look:
