hey everybody I'm Mike satell the founders to tell tutoring and this is episode six of my 10 part series on the strategies for the digital sat in this episode I'm going to talk about strong words which if you are subscribed to my channel and you've seen any of my videos even from the old SAT you know that strong words is an important part of the reading strategy so we're going to cover that but it's a difficult concept so I strongly recommend that you go back and watch episode one of this series on dumb summaries which was the main idea for the entire reading section it's going to put this in perspective and even though I don't use the phrase strong words in that episode I definitely use the concept to help me understand the con the connotations of the passages and the choices so anything that I highlighted that was a positive or A negative word those were strong words that were helping me understand the main idea and I used them to understand my dumb summary but in this episode we're going to dive deeper because strong words are about more than just connotation and we need to compare them to weak words so what makes a word strong or weak well it's not something that you can just memorize there isn't a list of strong words that can just give you this comes from practice this comes from experience this is something that will take you time but if you make a conscious effort to adapt this into your way of thinking for the reading section it will make a difference on your score regardless of where you're scoring now if you have a bad score it's probably because in Reading you're not noticing the strong words in the passage so you're missing the main ideas the things that are most important about all of these topics but even if you're scoring a 700 right now strong words are probably why you're missing those last few questions you're probably not noticing the strong words and the answer choices that that make you fall for a trap so I'm going to show you in both cases how to start filtering out the strong words from the weak words so you know what really matters for any sort of Passage and it's difficult to Define so I'm hoping that by giving you a couple of examples we we can kind of come to an understanding of what it means so in these five cases try to just use your intuition to determine whether the word underlined is strong or weak right it's we're all it's all about a cat but what feels like a strong piece of information about the cat three of these are strong in my opinion two of them would be weak starting with number one a bad cat definitely strong if we had just a picture of a cat and then we were told it was bad now we have this negative image of the cat so that's definitely changing my opinion about the cat in a meaningful way so connotation definitely is going to continue to be an important part of the strong words strategy but if you told me that it was a house cat that really doesn't have a connotation and it doesn't really change my opinion in any way if you just told me to think of a cat I would probably picture a house cat most people are not going to think of a tiger if you just tell them to think of a cat so telling me it's a house cat doesn't really move my opinion my image in any sort of meaningful way house here is a weak word in and the SAT loves to do this where they just give you tons of description that somehow matters for understanding like the image but not in a meaningful way that moves the story along so house cat here definitely weak Red Cat also weak and you might be thinking but there are aren't red cats that's weird right red there's orange cats but red cats that's very strange why wouldn't that be important information well mostly because it's still description and it might be if the rest of the passage was making a really big deal about how weird it was that this cat was red I would rethink my opinion and maybe Redcat would be a strong word but by itself a color is not really giving me any sort of meaningful uh understanding of this cat it might be changing my mental image but it's not really moving the story along whereas if we said it was a pretty cat now my opinion of the cat has changed in a meaningful way it's definitely a positive connotation so it kind of works like a bad cat right it changes my my opinion of whether I like this cat or not but actually pretty cat is even stronger than bad cat bad cat there's lots of ways for a cat to be bad it could be have a bad attitude a bad smell it could be ugly right it's lots of ways for it to be bad but if you tell me it's a pretty cat it's a good cat but it's good in this very specific way of how it looks so that's a stronger word because it's it's bringing more meaning to this idea of the cat this image that I have but connotation isn't everything if you told me it was an expensive cat that's still a strong word but the connotation I don't know expensive is a tricky word it could go either way but I still know something meaningful now about that cat that I didn't before and we could substitute in other similar words and kind of experiment a little bit with the connotation right if you told me it was an overpriced cat then I would say yeah you paid too much it's not worth whatever it cost if you told me it's a valuable cap and say oh yeah good deal right like maybe that's the cat that Garfield was based on it was worth the money expensive you know sometimes I think that things are expensive because I don't want to pay the price or sometimes expensive is good I think if something's expensive it has a higher quality to it than something that's inexpensive so expensive it doesn't necessarily have a set connotation but no matter what the word is here I know it has to do with money so here's a case where a word is strong not necessarily because of positives and negatives but because it brings something else to the table and that's kind of how we need to think of strong words your opinion of this cat is like a big boulder a big object and weak words are trying to push that and they're not really moving it in any particular direction but strong words they have the power to change your opinion to change your image of that cat in some way it's hard to Define but we need to start thinking of strong words as going Beyond connotation and here's an example I think that'll help us here we're gonna go slow through it but you'll notice that we're not really talking positives and negatives as we do it we're still thinking of words that impact our understanding but they're not really about connotations this is going beyond what we talked about in episode one let's take a look at the first sentence here in 1977 Quantum physicist Lorraine garganola theorized that a subatomic particle with negative electromagnetic spin might be responsible for Bridging the Gap between matter and energy lots of house cat stuff here yes it's all great I learned about a particle but I don't care about that the one word that stands out to me theorized right I don't care about the description of the cat what what is the cat doing here right so in this case I don't even know whether the cat is garganola maybe this is a story about this this woman maybe it's the story about the particle I don't know but the fact that it's theorized tells me something important it's a science idea that hasn't been proven yet and also knowing from experience the SAT like this is a common theme of these passages you have some scientific idea and we're going to do an experiment we're going to disprove it prove it whatever it may be so this is also just something that comes from experience too of knowing what kinds of stuff show up in the SAT but even beyond that the word might also stands out to me here because it's repeating this idea of uncertainty we don't really know if this particle is there and look at the bullet point right above there main ideas are repeated ideas this is really important when we're trying to come up with our dumb summary what comes up again and again that's probably important in sentence two uh for the next 40 years what became known as the garganola particle was mostly convenient speculation more on the theory stuff that is until Juniper Wong and colleagues claim that they'd observed the particle in 2019. so we definitely have a strong word that's showing this contrast the word until is is moving the opinion of this particle in a different direction because now it's not just a theory it has been observed so we're starting to get the story here sentence three Wong and her team fired helium atoms at a rod of plutonium-242 measuring the heat generated from the nuclear collisions and using electromagnets to divert other particles created during the reaction this is all house cat stop this is just describe an experiment I know it's not going to matter it's just that they did the experiment that matters I don't really care about the specifics that might also be partly just again knowing how these science passages work the details are not really that important unaffected by the electromagnets the garganola particles pass into a vacuum tube producing a faint Green Glow that provided the first ever validation of garganola's hypothesis so validation that matches nicely with the observation that we've now proven this thing and hypothesis calls back to the idea there's a theory at first it wasn't proven so this whole story is about a theory being proven that's my dumb summary notice my summary does not include what the theory was what the details of the particle were it does not include the experiment that did the proving I don't care that's not what this is going to be about my strong words are not going to be these little details about the science it's going to be what we learned about the science that matters so let's see if we can sort through the choices in a way that's very similar looking for strong words Choice a here plutonium-242 is a necessary component of experiments involving the garganola particle well you might eliminate that saying like well plutonium is part of the story but it's not the story right I don't want to pick a choice that emphasizes that and you're right but let's let's really look for a strong word because it's much more to me that they say it's a necessary component right if they just said it's a component then then maybe this choice is a better choice but right now to say that it's necessary that's really really strong this this we couldn't know anything about this particle without plutonium-242 maybe that's true I'm not a scientist but if it is true it's got to say it in the lines and it just really doesn't here when they bring up plutonium it's just kind of like an extraneous detail about the story about the experiment it's not saying that it's necessary so Choice a definitely wrong and in the next episode I'm going to talk about trap answer choices which often involve strong words that we don't at first glance think of as strong the idea of necessity of requirement this is a very common trap answer on the SAT so we'll talk more about stuff like Choice a in the next episode for now let's look at B scientists have discovered a new method for isolating subatomic particles maybe that's true if it is then they need to specifically say that this was a new method they definitely described the method of firing the helium at the plutonium but did they say that it's new no there's no word that copies that idea now if they said Wong and her team fired or Wong and her team used an Innovative strategy by firing helium atoms that brought a plutonium well Innovative does mean new so then we'd have evidence but as it stands now that word new is a very strong word and we are not allowed to just assume that it's new the passage in some way needs to say it and it does not so let's look at C scientists have demonstrated the existence of the garganola particle using empirical evidence well we've got some tough words there empirical we might not know but we definitely can understand the middle part the existence of the garganola particle well that matches nicely with our dumb summary right it was a theory and now they've proven that it exists so that seems pretty good but a lot of people are going to be turned off by this choice because it's very weak it leaves out detail and and they think that that's bad right scientists have demonstrated the existence of the garganola particle well they did demonstrate it they they did an experiment but does it talk about how they demonstrated it no it's using empirical evidence so do they talk about what the evidence is in the choice no right they leave it out the choice is very vague the passage talks about those things it says how they demonstrated it it says what the evidence was but the choice is leaving that out that's okay weak answers are not necessarily bad mostly because they're easy to prove we can find stuff in the passage that does it even if it's leaving out some of the details but let's compare that to D just for this to see really why weak versus strong is such a big deal uh the garganola particles negative electromagnetic spin made it difficult to separate the particle from an atom well it's it took them 40 years maybe maybe it was difficult right but do they actually say that it was difficult or are we saying that it was difficult are we assuming that if it took 40 years it was difficult maybe that's just us and and they don't specifically say either that it's the spin that made it difficult this is a very strong claim and so we need to focus on these words that one word in D is all it takes for us to get rid of this and pick choice C and this is how it's going to go sometimes we uh can prove the right answer right pretty definitively other times we're proving the wrong answer is wrong pretty definitively regardless we're using strong and weak words to think about the choices and we're looking for proof in the passage so if we have the strong words in the passage originally we probably understood what we read and then we use strong words and the choices to find things to go hunting for in the passage that we really really need to prove so it takes time it's a it's a process that you're going to need to slow down at first for but if you do you will do better and one thing you can't let's slow you down is when you don't know certain words right you can't say oh I don't know that word so I'm going to cross this Choice out empirical is a tough word it means experimental or real it's kind of fits nicely with the rest of this passage we have this um Theory that's kind of maybe proven through math or something abstract and then they're using real evidence they can see the glow which is real it's touchable it's it's based on fact so that word is good to know for the SAT but it wouldn't affect whether or not I would pick C here it just it's a word ignore because I don't know if it's strong or weak hopefully there's other words in the choice that I can use instead let's do one more example here and again we're going to kind of go slow but we're still kind of doing the same thing it says logically completes the text but basically we're going to look for our main idea again with participants from over 70 cities worldwide the Global Neighborhood ambassador program connects students with host families in other countries for a semester abroad during which the students get first-hand experience with the unique ways that Civic institutions mitigate problems associated with urban life this is all house cat stuff again it's telling me about the program I kind of need to know that to know we're talking about but it's not informing my real opinion here I don't know if the program is good or bad or it's just it's empty of any real knowledge here so for now I would not highlight anything maybe if something comes up later I'll come back but then we go to the next sentence the program is not without its flaws however well clearly now we're talking about negative so this is going to help with dumb summaries negative stuff is definitely going to matter my answer choices but let's keep reading for now despite being open to all the programs application process considers whether pairing the student with a host family for an extended period would create a financial burden for the host again lots of house cat stuff they're repeating what the program does but they do end with the strong phrase financial burden so again it's negative that's helpful but it's also adding this idea of money finances into the mix that's probably going to matter when we sort through the choices and we're about to do that because the end just kind of reiterates that it's negative some critics worry that in practice the program blah blah blah so let's look at the choices and oh sorry and our dumb summary let me not forget that it's we definitely need something negative but on top of that we need something with finances with money that was the strong idea that didn't have a connotation necessarily that we need to make sure appears in our choices and we look at the choices we're going to be able to find the negative stuff pretty easily so that in this case is not really helpful a lot of times with dumb summaries positive negative does eliminate some answers here we're going to need more so let's think about the money stuff as we sort through the other pieces Choice a the program might send students to cities with poor Public Transit making it difficult for them to witness a wide variety of local problems and solutions well public transit stands out to me that's strong because that's a very specific idea now do they talk about that idea in the passage no I don't think so I could invent some story about like if if you have a financial burden then you don't have the money for a car and to take the bus and the train if the bus in the train are not good then you can't go anywhere but that's me telling a story the story needs to tell the story and it doesn't talk about public transit here so this is not going to be a good answer Choice B the program could end up excluding low-income students who already lacked the resources to travel and experience other ways of life so we definitely have the money piece here there's not really anything else that jumps out to me so the strong words seem to all be provable I don't know maybe that's enough but I should look at C D and compare and and see before I pick this so Choice C the program discriminates against students from rural areas who might benefit from exposure to Urban environments no there's nothing about rural areas here it's all about cities so just that's a strong word no proof Choice d uh the program will not be able to secure long-term sources of funding that would allow it to expand to more cities well funding definitely hits that Finance piece but notice this choice is stronger than b it hits the funding idea hits the money idea but then it goes further expanding the program to more cities did they talk about that in the passage I don't think so whereas the only other thing in B is maybe that like their people are traveling and experiencing other ways of life and that is kind of what they talk about in that first sentence where they describe the program it's meant to get you get you know get you this experience with other places so B is the answer and again it's kind of right because it's weak whereas the other choices have these really strong words that we can't prove but to be clear choice B still has some strong words excluding low-income lack the resources these are strong ideas but they're provable with other strong words in the passage so that's our goal we want to match strong words from the choices with strong words from the passage if you can't do that the choice is probably wrong and so we're kind of always moving back and forth between the two but we want to filter the strong words from the weak ones and this will take practice a lot of times the easiest strong words have something to do with connotation but it goes beyond that so again try to think of it like what's the cat in the story what's the thing it's about and then what words push your opinion of the cat move your idea in some actual tangible Direction those are the words that matter most but weak words aren't all bad we want to kind of skip over them as we read the the passage but when we start to see weak choices then that's probably a good thing a lot of right answers in the SAT are right because they're not strong because there's nothing really to check and they easily check off whatever we need from the passage so weak answers are not necessarily bad so if something's vague you might have to pick it so just be prepared for that and like I said I am going to talk more about strong words in the next episode when I go over the Trap answer choices a lot of times traps on the SAT exist because we have these strong words that we might not think of as strong so for us they don't really stand out but they might make a big difference and so there are patterns in this so I will talk about that that can help you sort through the choices in another way so please make sure you subscribe so that you don't miss that episode when I release it and as always when it comes to your scores don't settle for less so tell for more thanks for watching