Adjectives for SAT Prep

SAT Writing - Adjectives

Adjectives are descriptive words, used to provide more detail about a person, place, thing, or idea in the sentence.

Adjectives describe nouns/pronouns (people, places, things, ideas)
- Adjectives go before a noun (young girl) or after a linking verb (was young).
- Adjectives can’t go after the noun (girl young is wrong)

Adjectives must go in a certain order:
- Number, quality, size, age, color, origin, type (the five smart small old yellow California round oranges)
  - Commas go between adjectives of equal weight

When using adjective to compare 2 things, the comparative form is used
- For 1 syllable words the comparative is made by adding “er” (younger)
- If the word ends in consonant + vowel, double last letter & add “er” (hotter)
- For 2 syllable words, use more to compare, instead of changing the endings (more educated) unless the word ends in y- then change the “y” to an “i” and add “er” (unluckier)

When using adjectives to compare 2 or more things, the superlative form is used
- The superlative is usually made by adding “est” (youngest)
- If the word ends in consonant + vowel, double last letter & add “est” (hottest)
- For 2 syllable words, use most (most educated) unless the word ends in y- then change the “y” to an “i” and add “est” (unluckiest)
There are some Irregular comparative/superlatives
- Good, better, best
- Bad, worse, worst
- Some, more, most
- Little, less than, least
- Far, further/farther, furthest/farthest
  - Further means ‘additional,’ farther represents physical distance

If you are adding “er/est” to the word, you never use more, most- it would be redundant
- Ex: It would be wrong to say "I am more better than you" since "better" is already comparing the two of us... the more is just redundant).