Our High-Frequency list typically includes challenging words found in Module 2 vocabulary in context questions. But there are exceptions. For example, SURVEYED is a relatively easy word that has been an answer on the June 2023, May 2023, March 2024, and December 2025 tests. Let’s take a look:
The question focuses on a well-known excerpt from Mark Twain’s 1876 novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Tom’s aunt Polly has ordered Tom to spend a beautiful Saturday morning painting a 30-foot-long board fence. According to the passage, “Tom appeared on the sidewalk, with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit.”
SAT test writers want to know what the word “surveyed” most nearly means. Before losing his happiness, Tom looks over and thus examines the length of the fence. Tom did not EXTOL or praise the fence. In this passage, SURVEY clearly means to look at or examine.
The SAT passage leaves Tom in limbo. Here’s what happened: When his friends came by to mock him, Tom cleverly pretended that whitewashing was an exclusive and enjoyable art form. Tom thus made the work look like a rare privilege. As a result, other neighborhood boys eagerly traded apples and marbles for a chance to paint the fence. Tom successfully tricked his friends into doing his chore for him, learning that making a tedious task seem exclusive makes people covet or want it!
SURVEY – the act of carefully looking at an object
EXTOL - to praise a person or thing