SAT Prep - Writing

There are certain words that are commonly misused in the English Language.  Word, or diction errors as they are sometimes called, are tested on the SAT Writing Section, and show up most frequently in the Identifying Sentence Error questions.  While you can't memorize all of the commonly misused words in the English language, there are certain words that the SAT is more inclined to test.  You should memorize these commonly misused words, and you should also pay careful attention to each underlined word to ensure that it has a definition that works in the sentence and that it is the correct form of the word. 

The commonly misused words that appear frequently on the SAT include:

• Accept versus Except
  • Accept is a verb, which means to take or agree to something
    • I accept your apology
    • I accept the cookies
  • Except is a preposition which means excluding
    • I accept the cookies, except the peanut ones (the peanut cookies are being excluded)
• Affect versus Effect
  • Affect is a verb meaning to change
    • Don't let his yelling affect your behavior (The sentence causes against a change in behavior)
  • Effect is a noun that describes something produced by a cause
    • The effect of the yelling was a change in behavior.  (The result of the yelling was a change). 
• Like versus As
  • Like is used to compare two things that are similar
    
    • Soy milk tastes just like regular milk
      
      • The word like is properly used here because you could replace it with "similar" and the sentence would still make sense: Soy milk tastes similar to regular milk
      • The word like is also properly used because only 2 things are being compared
  • As is a conjunction used to demonstrate the equality of two things, or to introduce an example chosen out of a group
    
    • He acted as a messenger for the class.
      
      • As is correct because he isn't acting similar to a messenger, he is equal to a messenger
      • It would not be correct to use like here because i would not make sense to say "He acted similar to a messenger."
    • Drinks, such as soy milk, are good for you. 
      
      • As is properly used here because an example (soy milk) is chosen out of a larger group (of all the drinks)
        
• Less versus Fewer
  • Less is used when comparing non-countable nouns
    • Yelling is less effective than talking (we can't count effectiveness so less is properly used)
  • Fewer is used when comparing things you can count
    • I've read fewer books this year (we can count books, so fewer is properly used)