Charles Harrington Elster - Tooth and Nail: A Novel Approach to the SAT

Copyright 2004 by Charles Harrington Elster and Joseph Elliot Glossary copyright 1994 by Charles Harrington Elster, Joseph Elliot, and Harcourt Brace & Company

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

SAT is a registered trademark of the College Entrance Examination Board.

www.hmhco.com

The Brainis wider than the Sky, by Emily Dickinson, is reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Thomas H. Johnson, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Elster, Charles Harrington.

Tooth and nail: a novel approach to the new SAT / Charles Harrington Elster & Joseph Elliot.

p. cm.(A Harvest test preparation book)

ISBN 0-15-601382-7

ISBN 978-0-15-601382-6

1. Scholastic aptitude testStudy guides.

I. Elliot, Joseph, 1960. II. Title. III. Series.

LB2353.57E47 1994

378.1'662dc20 9330958

e ISBN 978-0-547-54589-9
v1.0814

For Myrna and Anne:

indefatigable partners, beneficent wives.

But thou art all my art and dost advance
As high as learning my rude ignorance.

Shakespeare, Sonnet 78

The authors wish to thank the following persons for their assistance: Chuck Valverde of Wahrenbrocks Book House in San Diego, for sharing his esoteric knowledge of rare books; Steve Hayes, for help in the early stages; Philip Williams, for sage advice; Philip Turner, for a good tip; Cory Meacham; John Uphouse; Norman Storer and Mary Hiatt; and Nancy and Reinhardt Elster, for putting us up and putting up with us.

Congratulations. You have just done something very smartsomething commendable and meritorious, as the people who write the SAT would probably put it.

Why are you so smart? Because in picking up this book youve just taken the first step toward preparing yourself for the verbal sections of the SAT in a refreshing, creative way.

You might also have some fun in the process.

Studying for the SAT, fun? Give me a break, youre thinking. Well, thats just what we intend to give you.

The book youre holding in your hands represents a complete break from the SAT preparation methods of the past. Its a break from boring lessons. Its a break from trying to memorize tedious lists of unrelated words. Its a break from sharpening No. 2 pencils and filling in multiple-choice ovals. It is unlike any other SAT preparation book or program available today.

Thats because Tooth and Nail takes an innovative approachas the subtitle says, a novel approach. It offers you a way to build your vocabulary, improve your reading comprehension skills, and enjoy a good story all at the same time.

If that sounds like a better way to go, read on.

The Novel Approach and How it Works

Youve probably already realized theres a double meaning in the phrase a novel approach. We chose it, of course, to show that Tooth and Nail is unusual in two ways.

First, this book represents an entirely new way to build your vocabulary for the SAT. Second, its not a textbook. Its an actual novel that contains words youre likely to see on the test. In short, our novel approach says good-bye to word lists and lessons and lets you read your way to a stronger vocabulary.

Heres how it works:

Every boldfaced word in this book (boldface is dark type, like this) is an SAT word. Boldfacing is our subtle way of calling words to your attention without interrupting the flow of your reading. Think of it as a little flag or pop-up window that says, Hey, heres one that may come up on the test!

For example, of the four hundred words youve just read, six were boldfaced: commendable, meritorious, tedious, innovative, novel, and subtle. (Dark type, like this doesnt count because it was just an example.) These six and the hundreds of other boldfaced SAT words in Tooth and Nail are defined in the glossary at the back of the book. To quickly find out what a boldfaced word means, just flip to the glossary and look it up. Then reread the passage in which the word occurs to reinforce your understanding of the meaning.

Besides giving definitions, the glossary has two other helpful features:

1. Cross-referencing of synonyms. Look up adept in the glossary and youll find a definition followed by cross-references to four test-word synonyms: adroit, deft, dexterous, and proficient. Checking the definitions of these and all the other cross-referenced synonyms in the glossary will help you build your vocabulary faster by associating groups of related SAT words.
2. Page references showing where each SAT word occurs in the book. Each entry in the glossary lists the page numbers where you can find that word. If youre trying to master a certain word, you can easily study every passage where it appears in the book.

For further review and reinforcement, we also included a section of vocabulary-building exercises. These exercises are not like the questions on the SAT and they are not intended to teach you how to take the test. They are designed to solidify your understanding of the words you will learn from reading this bookthe words you need to know to analyze the questions on the test and answer them correctly.

Were convinced that if you peruseTooth and Nail, make diligent use of the glossary, and do all the exercises conscientiously, your vocabulary will be in excellent shape for the test.

What Exactly is a Test Word?

You may be wondering how we determined which words were test words, the ones weve boldfaced in this book. Heres what we did:

We analyzed the verbal sections of thirty-five published SATs and compiled a list of all the words that appeared two or more times on the test. Then, with the help of references teachers use to determine vocabulary grade level, we pared down our big list, eliminating simple words below the eighth-grade level until we were left with all the high school- and college-level wordsthe most challenging portion of the SAT vocabulary. Our final list contained more than twelve hundred upper-level words, many of which showed up on numerous SATs. These are the words you will find in the pages of Tooth and Nail.

Now, lets face facts. Because English has more than a million words, and because the particular test you take will be different from the tests we examined, we cant guarantee that our list contains every tough word youll encounter on your test. Based on our breakdown, however, we can assert that all the words in our list have a better-than-average chance of appearing on the SAT. So it stands to reason that learning as many of them as you can will improve your chances of doing well on the test.

But thats enough about word lists becausewell say it againthis book is