500 SAT Words You Should Know Before Test Day

Most SAT prep books push 500–1,000 word lists, but raw lists don't work. The students who score in the top 10% don't memorize all 500 words at once — they learn them in small batches, spaced over weeks, and always inside example sentences.

How to Approach a 500-Word SAT List

Break the list into 20 batches of 25 words. Spend two days on each batch: one day learning, one day reviewing. By week four you've cycled through every word twice — far more effective than cramming.

Word Categories That Appear on the SAT

• Tone words (caustic, sardonic, earnest, reverent)
• Argument words (substantiate, refute, concede, qualify)
• Change words (mitigate, exacerbate, undermine, bolster)
• Personality words (gregarious, taciturn, candid, capricious)
• Logic words (plausible, ambiguous, coherent, fallacious)

Build Your List With LearnLexiq

LearnLexiq already organizes the top 500 SAT vocabulary words by root, frequency, and difficulty — so you don't have to. Track every word you've ever learned in your personal Word History, and let our spaced-repetition engine resurface anything you flagged as 'might forget.'

Don't Just Memorize — Use the Words

Vocabulary you can actually use sticks. Write three sentences with each new word, or speak them out loud — LearnLexiq even gives you a natural AI voice pronunciation so the word feels real.