DISCONTINUOUS

DISCONTINUOUS is a relatively easy word to define. Continuous means uninterrupted. Adding the prefix DIS changes the word to mean NOT continuous and therefore broken and interrupted.

Although DISCONTINUOUS is a straightforward word, SAT test writers have featured it as the answer for a challenging June 2026 vocabulary in context question. How did they do it? Good question! Here’s the answer:

The passage provides a highly technical discussion of the distribution of Zoochorous trees in the Xishuangbanna rainforest. I’m lost in the woods already! But wait – it turns out that animal dispensers create a – voila – random or DISCONTINUOUS distribution of trees by randomly scattering seeds across the region.

Unfortunately, ANACHRONISTIC tempted many confused and probably bored students. An ANACHRONISM is an event that occurs in the wrong chronological order. In this passage the trees are DISCONTINUOUS because of their random geographic distribution and not their chronological placement.

DISCONTINUOUS – a broken, interrupted distribution that doesn’t flow

Smoothly

ANACHRONISTIC – anything that is chronologically out of place

BONUS POINT: ANACHRONISTIC appeared as a tempting wrong answer on two different June 2026 SAT questions! If you have been closely following my Substack posts you may recall that a disputed question used ANACRONISTIC to describe “petticoat practitioners,” a name given to early 19^th century women lawyers. Needless to say, the term is now ARCHAIC or out-of-date!