Quiz created: 2020-01-09

Vocabulary Quiz 82

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. “But the old guard are wrong to say that the European Central Bank is deliberately COSSETING the southerners. Northerners, too, have enjoyed lower debt-service costs … .” (191012, The Economist, p. 79) Someone who is “cosseted” is
pampered 
cheated 
not subjected to oversight 
given an advantage that is technically illegal 
subjected to abuse 
insulted 
No Answer
2. “In the attorney’s life, you can see the strange ease with which a SYBARITIC con man fit in with crusading social reactionaries. You see the glee Cohn derived from being an exception to the rules he enforced on weaker people.” Someone who is "sybaritic" is
devoted to pleasure and luxury 
unscrupulous 
hypocritical 
power hungry 
ignorant but lucky 
ingenious 
No Answer
3. “His deadpan cool, with wry comebacks, stood in contrast with Trump’s gloomy SOLIPSISTIC bluster.” Someone who is “solipsistic” is
inclined to malapropisms 
self-absorbed 
noisy 
stupid and/or foolish 
untrustworthy 
No Answer
4. “This [late entry into the primary race] is a pipe dream. I just think it’s PREPOSTEROUS. You don’t win this thing by getting in late. You have to go out and earn it.” (191125-SDUT-A4) Something “preposterous” is
very late but before a deadline 
after a deadline 
pretentious 
absurd 
impressive 
No Answer
5. “… millions of young [climate] idealists … will throng the streets of New York during next week’s UN General Assembly —this overhaul requires nothing less than the GELDING or uprooting of capitalism. After all, the system grew up through the use of fossil fuels in ever-greater quantities.” (190921, The Economist, p. 13) “Gelding” refers to
reformation 
subjection to a vote 
subjection to thoroughgoing criticism 
castration 
No Answer
6. “More fundamentally, ushering the Taliban and [Afghan] government to the [negotiating] table and keeping them there would require a degree of political NOUS and flexibility that America lacks above all else in Afghanistan.” (190907, The Economist, p. 32) “Nous” (pronounced “noose”), as the word is used here, refers to
shrewdness 
imagination 
sufficient wealth to take a loss without worrying about it 
consistency of long-term goals 
No Answer
7. “Israel’s longest-serving prime minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] FINAGLED an unprecedented repeat vote rather than let the opposition have a go at forming a government. Israelis went back to the polls this week, but once again Bibi’s right-wing bloc fell short of a majority in the 120-seat Knesset.” (190927, The Week, p. 14) A person who “finagles” something
obtains it by deceitful or deceptive persuasion 
declares it by administrative fiat 
fails at it 
acquires it only with huge costs 
fumbles to hold on to it and then loses it anyway 
No Answer
8. “India is a paragon neither of democracy nor of environmental [policy]. Yet non-governmental … groups piping up about the environment are surely better than the mandated silence in China. And even PECCANT democracies like Australia’s can change course.” (190921, The Economist, p 46) A person or group that is “peccant” is
slow-moving 
internally divided 
unresponsive 
self-satisfied 
sinful or erring 
No Answer
9. “While we do not place DISPOSITIVE weight on this fact, it reinforces our conclusion that the disclosure of personal financial information, standing alone, is unlikely to impair the president in performing the duties of his office.” (2nd Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Robert Katzman, in 191214, SDUT, p. A8). The legal adjective “dispositive” refers to something which
determines the outcome of a case 
prevents a case from going to trial 
the equal distribution of a legal award across all litigants 
must be ignored in deciding a case because a judge rules it both irrelevant and distracting 
negative facts that tend to undermine a plaintiff’s argument 
No Answer

      Points out of 9:


Awesomeness
Score
Awesomeness Score: The following awesomeness score is a measure of how much guessing you did to get all items right. It is 100 if you got all questions right when you clicked the process button for the first time. It gets proportionately lower if it took more clicks, until it hits 0 if your clicks exceeded the number of questions.



Return to top.

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 March 24, 2015.