In her song “Shake It Off,” Taylor Swift correctly warns that “haters gonna hate.” It’s too bad Taylor didn’t add the lyrics “detractors gonna detract.” This change would have enabled Taylor to score a direct hit on a recent vocabulary in context question while also teaching students that DETRACTORS are critics who highlight faults.
The prefix DE means DOWN! For example, when construction crews DEMOLISH a building, they tear it DOWN. DETRACTOR is thus a very negative word.
As a general rule, SAT test writers avoid using negative words as answers to describe scientists, authors, artists, and other creators. However, watch out for passages beginning with a negative phrase followed by a positive reversal. For example, although DETRACTORS initially write negative reviews about a movie, they frequently revise their view and praise the film as a bold forerunner of a new trend.
DETRACTOR – a critic who typically finds fault with someone or something