The November 2026 SAT Vocab Survey + Quiz US Version 4

With the help of reports from students and Reddit's r/SAT, I've compiled the most common and challenging vocabulary from the November 2026 SAT US Version 4. I've put these into a quiz format so students and parents can challenge themselves. Good luck!

SAT Vocabulary November 2026 US - Version 4 - Warm-up Reading Passage

Instructions: Read this passage carefully before taking your quiz. All 11 vocabulary words from the November 2026 SAT (additional reported words, Version 4) appear in context. Pay attention to how each word is used naturally in the story.

The River Agreement

For generations, the farmers upstream and the townspeople downstream had shared the same river, and the same enmity. Every drought brought accusations that the other side was taking more than its share.

When a new drought hit in 2025, the regional water board hired analyst Teresa Molina to settle the question. Her first step was an aggregation of every available record: well readings, irrigation logs, and decades of rainfall data.

The numbers revealed a clear disparity. Downstream households used about the same amount of water each summer, but upstream withdrawals had nearly doubled. One farm stood out as an anomaly, pumping more than the next five combined.

The obvious, expedient move would have been to cut every farm's allotment equally. Teresa argued that such a rule would punish careful farmers for one neighbor's immoderate use. She also pointed to the ambiguity in the original water agreement, which never defined how a "fair share" should be measured.

Her recommendation proved contentious. Some farmers accused her of taking sides; some residents said she had been too gentle. But she insisted that the determination of each user's limit should rest on data, not on old grudges.

The board adopted her plan, and something unexpected happened. Farmers who had always felt blamed began to see themselves as part of the solution. Several realized they could save money with drip irrigation, and they began to exercise real agency over the river's future instead of simply defending their share.

Vocabulary words practiced: contentious, expedient, agency, anomaly, ambiguity, enmity, disparity, realize, immoderate, determination (of), aggregation