Lewis, Michael. The Undoing Project. W.W. Norton, 2016.
SAT Vocabulary Words
Ape: imitate the behavior or manner of (someone or something), especially in an absurd or unthinking way."In 2004, after aping Oakland's approach to baseball decision making, the Boston Red Sox won their first World Series in nearly a century." (p. 16)
Sui generis: unique.
"Trump seemed sui generis" (p. 16)
Chit: a short official note, memorandum, or voucher, typically recording a sum owed.
"used the draft pick as the biggest chit in a deal to land a superstar, James Harden" (p. 44)
Vagary: an unexpected and inexplicable change in a situation or in someone's behavior.
"vagaries of human judgment" (p. 45)
Fiendish: extremely awkward or complex.
"fiendishly complicated alarm clock" (p. 45)
Putative: generally considered or reputed to be.
"It was curious, when you thoguht about it, that such a putatively competitive market as a market for highly paid athletes could be so inefficient in the first place." (p. 51)
"If these putative experts could be misled about the value of their predictions, who would not be misled?" (p. 80)
Sweep: a comprehensive search or survey of a place or area.
Makeshift: serving as a temporary substitute; sufficient for the time being.
"after he'd been taken away in a big seep in November 1941... he was jailed in the makeshift prison in Drancey" (p. 53)
Chattel: (in general use) a personal possession; an item of property other than real estate.
"freet o travel to Paris to see what remained of their home and chattels" (p. 58)
Minaret: a tall slender tower, typically part of a mosque, with a balcony from which a muezzin calls Muslims to prayer.
"The minaret on the beach beside what is now the Intercontinental Hotel became an Arab sniper nest." (p. 63)
Preposterous: contrary to reason or common sense; utterly absurd or ridiculous.
Danny was younger, and dressed in a jacket and tie, which struck the other students as preposterous." (p. 67)
Platoon: a subdivision of a company of soldiers, usually forming a tactical unit that is commanded by a lieutenant and divided into several sections.
"Danny's platoon was meant to circle around the village and ambush any Arab forces." (p. 74)
Rebuff: reject (someone or something) in an abrupt or ungracious manner.
"who tried to lead and was rebuffed" (p. 77)
Halo effect: the tendency for an impression created in one area to influence opinion in another area.
"Danny knew of the halo effect.... [the interviewers] had been spending twenty minutes with each new recruit and from the encounter offering a general impression of the recruit's character." (p. 79)
Neurotic: abnormally sensitive, obsessive, or tense and anxious.
"psychoanalysts who tried to predict what would become of their neurotic patients fared poorly compared to simple algorithms" (p. 80)
Fog: something that obscures and confuses a situation or someone's thought processes.
Strafe: attack repeatedly with bombs or machine-gun fire from low-flying aircraft.
"In the fog of battle, he was strafed not just by Egyptian but also Isaeli warplanes." (p. 86)
Force: a person or thing regarded as exerting power or influence.
Operator: a person who acts in a specified, especially a manipulative, way.
"His mother, Genia Tversky, was a social force and political operator who became a mebmer of the first Israeli Parliament, and the next four after that." (p. 88)
Morose: sullen and ill-tempered.
Kibbutz: a communal settlement in Israel, typically a farm.
"She'd turned up one day, morosely, in their high school class. After her father's death she'd lived on a kibbutz, which she loathed" (p. 90)
Disquisition: a long or elaborate essay or discussion on a particular subject.
"a disquisition on the differences between Americans and Israelis" (p. 95)
Quotidian: ordinary or everyday, especially when mundane.
"He minimized quotidian tasks he thought a waste of time - he could be found in the middle of the day, having just woken up, driving himself to work while shaving and brushing his teeth in the rearview mirror." (p. 96)
Preternatural: beyond what is normal or natural.
"a preternatural gift for doing only precisely what he wanted to do" (p. 97)
Abnegation: the act of renouncing or rejecting something.
"abnegation of social responsibility" (p. 98)
Insouciance: casual lack of concern; indifference.
"His classmate Amia Lieblich witnessed Amos's insouciance after he'd been assigned by a professor to administer an intelligence test to a five-year-old child. 'The night before the work was due, Amos turned to Amnon and said, "Amnon, lie down on the couch. I am going to ask you some questions. Pretend you are five years old." And he got away with it!' " (p. 101)
Uzi: a type of submachine gun of Israeli design.
"Barabary was struck by how casually her new husband tossed his Uzi on the bed before taking a shower." (p. 120)
Ostensibly: apparently or purportedly, but perhaps not actually.
"the minds ability to defend itself from what it ostensibly did not want to perceive" (p. 131)
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