No list will ever cover all the vocab words that might appear on the SAT. There are just too many words. In fact, we can pretty much guarantee that somewhere on the new SAT, you’ll come across a word you haven’t studied or just can’t remember. No problem. We’ll show you what to do.

Lots of test-prep companies advise students to study Greek and Latin roots of English words to help figure out the meaning of an SAT vocabulary word. Some students even take Latin in high school with the sole aim of using it to learn vocabulary roots for the SAT. English words are often made up of bits and pieces derived from Latin or Greek, which we call word roots. For example, let’s say you come across the word antebellum on the SAT and don’t know what it means. The word root ante means “before,” and bellum means “war,” so you might think that antebellum means “before the war.” You’re correct! Here’s a list of the 28 most common word roots that’ll help you puzzle out the meanings of unfamiliar SAT words.