Quiz created: 081221

Vocabulary Quiz 8

Instructions: Answer the multiple choice questions, guessing if necessary; then click on the "Process Questions" button at the end of the quiz to see your score in the adjacent message box. The program will not reveal which questions you got wrong, only how many points you have. Go back and change your answers until you get them all right. (The message box will rejoice at that point and the page will change color to show it is tickled pink.)

Points to note: (1) Questions with only one possible answer are one point each. (2) Questions with one or more possible answers (represented by check boxes) give a point for each correct answer, but also subtract a point for each wrong answer! (3) The program will not attempt to score your efforts at all if you have not tried at least half of the questions. (4) This quiz is for your own use only. No record of your progress is kept or reported to anyone.

1. "National Assembly speaker Baleka Mbete, who is also chairwoman of the African National Congress, is widely expected to become the interim head of state, paving the way for [President] Mbeki's NEMESIS, ANC President Jacob Zuma, to take over after the elections."(Associated Press, 080922) A president's nemesis is his
assistant 
protegé 
long-time friend 
enemy 
second-in-command 
co-conspirator 
No Answer
2. "… the porn[ography] industry, by some estimates, has SWOLLEN to rival professional sports and the major broadcast networks as a revenue-generating source of entertainment." (The Atlantic, October 2008, p. 81) "Swollen" is the past-participle of the verb
to swirl 
to swill 
to swell 
to swallow 
to swoon 
to swot 
No Answer
3. "This point of view … has been strengthened by the erosion of the second-order arguments against the use of porn[ography], especially the argument that it feeds MISOGYNY and encourages rape." (The Atlantic, October 2008, p. 84) Misogyny is
hatred of women 
addiction 
marital infidelity 
wasting money 
crime 
corruption 
misanthropy 
No Answer
4. "But dismembering SIVs [structured investment vehicles] will take time. And, in a cruel irony, American policymakers' CACK-HANDED efforts to ease the pain, by giving an official stamp of approval to the idea of a super-SIV, have only added to investors' worries. If America's Treasury is involved, the logic goes, the SIV mess must be worse than it looks." (The Economist, Oct 27, 2007, p. 18) The policymakers' attempts to ease the pain were
punitive 
intelligent but poorly executed 
indirect 
prompt 
belated 
clumsy 
No Answer
5. [The extremely expensive Saville report about the Northern Ireland riots of 1972] "… has all been madness, a demonstration of what happens when lawyers are permitted by a weak judge to GRAZE UNCHECKED for years upon limitless pastures of public money." (The Guardian November, 2008, via The Week, 081121: 17) Grazing unchecked means
bumping up against 
spending without proper authority 
brushing against something without seriously damaging it 
eating pasturage without limit 
No Answer
6. "Speaking one's mind is one of those things a royal personage simply can't do, like singing KARAOKE or going to a nude beach. (The Week 081121:17) Singing karaoke means singing
badly 
in bars 
bawdy songs 
professionally 
in the bathtub 
No Answer
7. "The rebel victory laid bare the FECKLESSNESS of the Congolese government, two years after the most expensive foreign-financed election in African history. and despite the muscle of the largest U.Nl peacekeeping mission, with 17,000 troops in the country."(Boston Globe, November 3, 2008) A person who is feckless is
corrupt or immoral 
ineffective 
without the ability to produce offspring 
without adequate money 
mentally deteriorated and easily confused 
No Answer
8. "'All writing is rewriting,' runs the annoying adage. Annoying because all adages, in their HECTORING certainty, feel like sharp pokes in the ear." (Harpers Magazine, November 2008) Hectoring means
bullying 
unsubstantiated 
utterly trite 
screamingly loud 
deliberately deceptive 
No Answer
9. "As a result [of the practice of electing rather than appointing judges to international courts], decisions affecting millions of lives can be taken by questionable people: 'government hacks and LICKSPITTLES, with little or now judicial experience, who have demonstrated their loyalty to their governments by defending the unconscionable,' as one human-rights lawyer puts it." (The Economist, 081122, p. 70) A lickspittle is
a beginner with no experience 
a very low ranking civil servant 
a person who buys an official position 
a fawning toady 
a person rapidly promoted from a menial job to high office 
No Answer
10. "And the emerging world is not immune [to the global cash squeeze]: witness a stiff e-mail from Ratan Tata to managers at India's BELL-WETHER Tata group telling them to undertake 'a critical review of their cashflow requirements and business plans'." (The Economist, 081122, p. 17) A "wether" is a castrated lamb. Something regarded as a bell-wether
is the largest of its kind 
reflects the situation of a wider class 
has suffered a sad event 
has arisen from very lowly status 
is unknowingly without the ability to affect events 
No Answer

      Points out of 10:

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This consummately cool, pedagogically compelling, self-correcting,
multiple-choice quiz was produced automatically from
a simple text file of questions using D.K. Jordan's
dubiously original, but publicly accessible
Think Again Quiz Maker
of October 6, 2008.