Quiz created: 100101

Vocabulary Quiz 12

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. "[Britney] Spears teetered through her dance steps and mouthed only occasional words in a WAN attempt to lip-sync her new single, 'Gimme More.'" (New York Times News Service, 070915) The reviewer believes her attempt was "wan" in that it was
drunken 
unsuccessful 
brilliant 
sickly 
extremely difficult 
exaggerated for comic effect 
a collective effort 
No Answer
2. "This is the great irony of multitasking: that its overall goal, getting more done in less time, turns out to be CHIMERICAL. In reality, multitasking slows our thinking. … A brain attempting to perform two tasks simultaneously will, because of all the back-and-forth stress, exhibit a substantial lag in information processing." (The Atlantic, November 2007, p. 72) The goal is "chimerical" because it is
inefficient 
dependent upon an erroneous notion of brain chemistry 
a fantasy 
plagued by unforeseen side effects 
laughable 
No Answer
3. "Even worse, certain studies find that multitasking boosts the level of stress-related hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline and wears down our systems through biochemical friction, prematurely aging us. In the short term, the confusion, fatigue, and chaos merely hamper our ability to focus and analyze, but in the long term, they may cause it to ATROPHY." (The Atlantic, November 2007, p. 72) An ability which "atrophies"
deteriorates 
becomes stronger 
specializes in only a subset of its earlier range of functions 
becomes an obsession 
affects an organism's heart and lung functions 
No Answer
4. "A lot of what's on the Internet is SCURRILOUS." (PBS News Hour, 080630) That is to say, today's Internet has much that is
so abbreviated and speeded up that it contains little information 
valuable 
exploitative of women 
paid for by large corporations 
government propaganda 
defamatory 
infantile 
No Answer
5. "Even the HAPLESS Dan Quayle, George Bush senior's sidekick, had served in the House and Senate for 12 years [when selected as Mr. Bush's running-mate]." (The Economist, 080906, p. 40) A person who is "hapless" is
ineffective 
lacking a head covering 
flawless in appearance 
well-spoken 
of mixed parentage 
unlucky 
No Answer
6. "Seen from the dock in Angra dos Reis, the port south of Rio de Janeiro where it is moored, Petrobras's P-51 oil rig looks like a chemistry set the size of several apartment blocks. Once on board it is easy to get lost among all the tubes at its dark and CLAUSTROPHOBIC centre." (The Economist, 080830, p. 36) The center of the oil rig is described as "claustrophobic" because it
makes a person feel closed in 
is scary enough to make a person distrust even Santa Claus 
is off-limits to anyone without official clearance 
is painted with a kind of tar-based wall covering that resists moisture damage 
is lit dimly but in a rainbow of colors 
No Answer
7. "This being Brazil, however, space has been made for a football pitch. From the top deck [of the oil rig] the view is VERTIGINOUS; in the heat of a Rio winter the indigo water far below is inviting." (The Economist, 080830, p. 36) The view from the top deck
is spectacularly beautiful 
shows the green mountainside behind Rio 
makes a person dizzy 
looks straight down on all sides 
is limited to what can be seen from tiny port holes 
No Answer
8. "This being Brazil, however, space has been made for a football pitch. From the top deck [of the oil rig] the view is vertiginous; in the heat of a Rio winter the INDIGO water far below is inviting." (The Economist, 080830, p. 36) Looking down from the rig, the water appears especially
rapidly churning 
peaceful and undisturbed 
dark blue 
full of sea life 
light blue-green 
No Answer

      Points out of 8:

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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 15, 2009.