Many students complain that SAT test writers select obscure and irrelevant topics. But is this true? In fact, test writers carefully study the citation rates of articles published in major academic journals. A citation rate is the number of times an article is referenced by other scholars. Needless to say, frequently cited articles attract the attention of SAT test writers.
It should come as no surprise that SAT test writers have turned their method of selecting topics into a large cluster of vocabulary in context questions. For example, a recent “scholarly research” question noted that “one way to evaluate the importance of a scholar’s research” is to ENUMERATE or count other scholars’ references to that article. A large number of citations UNDERSCORES or emphasizes the article’s impact and usefulness.
The “scholarly research cluster” uses a number of tempting but incorrect answers. For example, UNDERMINE (subvert), ABRIDGE (shorten), and FORESTALL (prevent) are all wrong choices.