Obscure words are fine for masters and doctoral theses, specialized technical writing, and specific legal terms.
As a person who has handled analyses of millions of dollars worth of assets, the key in writing an understandable report is to write at a 12 year old level. Words of 3 syllables or less unless absolutely necessary. Words that clearly state the findings and meanings you are trying to convey.
The extreme use of obscure legal terms, for example, has led to the requirement that contracts be written in common language.
The change in requirements do not reflect a ‘dumbing down’ of the test. Rather a reflection of what an individual will typically use in 98% of their college life.
The purpose of a high standard is to differentiate the levels of acquired intelligence and achievement so that selective schools can identify the very best students among the merely competent ones. Inclusion of some obscure words helped to set those truly superior students apart in fields where language mastery is valued. Thanks to politically correct pressure, the SAT will soon measure only a level of functional competence in language, with excellence ignored and therefore eventually discouraged. When those who are average demand and get higher scores that they do not merit, the system has been dumbed down. An average society despises and punishes merit.
When I was 12, I was reading at college level, or so the tests told me. I don't remember much from sixth grade, but I do recall my class read "The Count of Monte Cristo". That was a challenge.
Back then, in the 60s, California public schools were very good.
The vocabulary words from the old SATs are not legal or technical terms. Some are mere pedantry, the thing you throw into an essay to win points from a certain kind of grader. Others are evocative, precise, and necessary for a rich literature.
I love to use an uncommon word when it is the perfect, precise word, but I learned decades ago to keep those words out of ordinary conversation or documents. Still, if I have the right conversational partner, or I am writing fiction, and one of those words is the RIGHT word, I will use it. And if I am reading or hearing Shakespeare I want a chance to decipher the words that he invented (incarnadine). Even Twain will throw a word in that requires a dictionary (philopena.) I would have to contrive a situation to use that word, but I regard Mr. Twain with gratitude nevertheless.
To take away the old vocabulary is both an attempt to reduce the SAT’s function as a de facto IQ test, and a further step away from the ideal of a college education in the liberal arts (that is, those arts that a free man should know, and leading to independent thinking) and towards the idea of an education serving the needs of business and government.
BTW, a requirement for common language in contracts does not preclude an unreadable number of pages.
Your point of view is what’s wrong with education: we produce “graduates” that are juuuuust smart enough to do their tasks, but not so smart (or well informed, or disciplined with critical thinking skills) that they’ll start asking unwanted questions. A servile education, as opposed to what used to be the gold standard of liberal education.