One subtle problem with standardized tests is that they need sufficiently "hard" questions to produce results on a bell curve, and chasing this tail may cause a descent into pure trivia. This is how "emollient" & "adumbrate" end up on the SAT, where they can make & break futures.
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Is it really unambiguous that "emollient" & "adumbrate" are pure trivia? It’s not hard to make the case that aptitude, intellectual curiosity and conscientiousness would make one more likely to know them.
Aptitude, intellectual curiosity, & conscientiousness make a person more likely to know a lot of trivia within fields of interest; someone without these traits knows fewer extraneous facts. A well-read kid will do well on these tests — but a prep-drilled kid can surpass him.
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This hasn't been my experience teaching test prep. It's *very* difficult to raise verbal scores much. They inch upwards. Half the questions are reading passages, and sentence completion still requires understanding of how the word(s) fit into a sentence.
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Much, much better questions. Especially when the content is interesting!
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