LSAT Vocab

Question 1

Dilettantism

Answer 1

being an amateur

-expertise in multiple areas risk charges of dilettantism

Question 2

surmise

Answer 2

to suppose something is true without having evidence
-The record of 18th century linen production in Down, together with the knowledge that flax cultivation had been established in Ireland centuries before that time, led some histories to surmise that this plant was being cultivated in Down before the 18th century.

Question 3

Purport

Answer 3

appearing or stated to be true, though not necessarily so; alleged
-She had grown up reading and loving both fiction and poetry, she said, unaware of any purported danger lurking in attempts to mix the two.

Question 4

Coattails

Answer 4

• successfully attach (coattails are the flaps of suits)

- Music, it would seem, had little adaptive value of its own, and most likely developed on the coattails of language

Question 5

Faculty

Answer 5

• an inherent mental or physical power
• darwin claimed that since “neither the enjoyment nor the capacity of producing musical notes are faculties of the least practical use to man…they must be ranked amongst the most mysterious with which he is “

Question 6

Confer

Answer 6

• to grant or bestow
• Under such conditions, the emotional bonds created in the premedical mother-infant interactions we observe in Homo sapiens today - behavior whose neurological basis essentially constitutes the capacity to make and enjoy music – would have conferred considerable evolutionary advantage.

Question 7

To qualify a claim

Answer 7

to modify, limit or restruct

Question 8

reformulation

Answer 8

• to create again or differently

- Cather’s preference anticipated an important reformation of the criticism of fiction

Question 9

tenuity

Answer 9

• thinness; lack of substance

- Cather’s themes could readily fail to find the structure and substance that might have given that sketch

Question 10

facilely

Answer 10

• easily achieved

- literary critics have assumed too facilely that he wrote novels

Question 11

omniscient

Answer 11

• knowing everything
• And, perhaps most revealingly, in the majority of Tutola’s works, the traditional accents and techniques of the teller of folktales are clearly discernible, for example in the adoption of an omniscient, summarizing voice at the end of his narratives.

Question 12

discernible

Answer 12

• able to be perceived
• And, perhaps most revealingly, in the majority of Tutola’s works, the traditional accents and techniques of the teller of folktales are clearly discernible, for example in the adoption of an omniscient, summarizing voice at the end of his narratives.

Question 13

perennial

Answer 13

-lasting or existing for a long period of time

Question 14

inadvertent

Answer 14

• not resulting from or achieved through deliberate planning
• Theoretically, an injunction also prohibits such inadvertent “leakage.”

Question 15

irreconcilable

Answer 15

• representing findings or points of view that are so different from each other that they cannot be made compatible
• Two basic principles in such cases appear irreconcilable…”

Question 16

proprietor

Answer 16

• the owner of a business
• This is a major stumbling block in the attempt to protect trade secrets since the proprietor has no recourse against others who independently generate the same information.

Question 17

recourse

Answer 17

• a source of her in difficult situations
• the legal right to demand compensation or payment
• This is a major stumbling block in the attempt to protect trade secrets since the proprietor has no recourse against others who independently generate the same information.

Question 18

redress

Answer 18

• to remedy or set right
• Means of redress must be made available to companies that suspect, but cannot prove that former employees are revealing protected information to competitors.

Question 19

Antagonize

Answer 19

• cause (someone) to become hostile
• Typically, then, the more cohesive a group becomes, the less its members will deliberately censor what they say out of fear of being punished socially for antagonizing their fellow members.

Question 20

distillation

Answer 20

• the extraction of the essential meaning or most important aspects of something
• Meanwhile, because middle- and upper-class European Americans often felt threatened by the tremendous cultural flux around them, they prized what they regarded as authentic art forms as nations of stability; much of Walker’s success with this audience derived from her distillate of what was widely acclaimed as the most authentic cakewalk.

Question 21

bastion

Answer 21

• an institution, place, or person defending or upholding particular principles, attitudes or activities
• Meanwhile, because middle- and upper-class European Americans often felt threatened by the tremendous cultural flux around them, they prized what they regarded as authentic art forms as nations of stability; much of Walker’s success with this audience derived from her distillate of what was widely acclaimed as the most authentic cakewalk.

Question 22

proprietary

Answer 22

• marketed under and protected by a registered trade name
• behaving as if one were the owner of someone or something
• Over the years individual drilling companies and their expert drillers have devised proprietary formulations, or mud “recipes”….

Question 23

propagate

Answer 23

• spread and promote (an idea, theory, etc) widely
• For example, a government might seek to intercept transmissions that propagate the kinds of consumer fraud that it regulates within its jurisdiction.

Question 24

jurisdiction

Answer 24

• the official power to make legal decisions and judgements
• the extent of the power to make legal decisions and judgements
• a system of law courts
• the territory or sphere of activity over which the legal authority of a court or other institution extends
• For example, a government might seek to intercept transmissions that propagate the kinds of consumer fraud that it regulates within its jurisdiction.

Question 25

olfactory

Answer 25

• relating to the sense of smell
• Adrian Wenner and others believed that bees rely on olfactory cues, as well as the dance, to find a food source, but this has turned out not to be so.

Question 26

deft

Answer 26

• demonstrating skill and cleverness
• Noguchi’s sculptures showed exquisite comprehension of human anatomy and deft conceptual realization that he won a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Question 27

quintessential

Answer 27

• representing the most perfect or typical example of a quality or class
• Expanding beyond the initial setting of flatbed-truck stages at the fields’ edges, the act became the quintessential form of Chicano theater in the 1960s.