Quiz created: 2020-07-24

Vocabulary Quiz 87

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. “Hong Kong’s success as a global financial hub stems from its status as a bridge between China’s economic miracle and the rest of the world. Now that balance is looking increasingly PRECARIOUS.” (2020-06-01, NYT via SDUT, p. A11) A balance that is “precarious” is
endangered 
frightening and dangerous 
precious 
unnecessary 
central to other operations 
No Answer
2. “Földényi, a scholar and critic who teaches the theory of art in Budapest, is an intense, TENDENTIOUS, often maddening presence. Few books have as utterly engrossed and powerfully alienated me as this one has.” (2020-06-01, The New Yorker, p. 65) A “tendentious” person
is strongly opinionated and/or partisan 
thoughtlessly supports trending popular opinions 
is ambivalent and hesitant in making judgements 
writes with deliberate ambiguity 
uses very coarse language 
No Answer
3. “Wodehouse’s novels focus almost exclusively on the madcap troubles of the PERILOUSLY leisured. Many take place in country houses, and often turn on such events as the hope of extracting an allowance increase from a difficult uncle.” (2020-06-01, The New Yorker, p. 62) Something “perilous” is
ridiculous 
accomplished against overwhelming odds 
from birth 
unfair 
risky 
extreme 
No Answer
4. “It seems politically OBTUSE for Trump to make this an issue of contention at a time when he trails his Democratic opponent … by nearly 10 points.” (2020-07-02, SDUT, p. B-8) “Obtuse” means
astute 
stupid 
distracting 
complicating 
aggressive 
No Answer
5. “… Spode, we learn, is the head of the Black Shorts, a group clearly kin to Mussolini’s Blackshirts, but hampered by a shortage of shirts. ‘Bare knees?’ Wooster asks in disbelief, learning about Spode’s activities. He is horrified … by the POPLITEAL unpleasantness.” (2020-06-01, The New Yorker, p. 62) “Popliteal” means
sartorial 
related to lower legs 
related to the back of the knee 
hairy 
political 
No Answer
6. “The [American] administration’s effort to promote Saudi Arabia as a regional proxy, to help effect its [America’s] withdrawal, is also somehow OLEAGINOUS.” (2020-04-25, The Week, p. 22) Something or somebody “oleaginous” is literally or figuratively
vacuous 
constrained by seemingly irrelevant external factors 
too late to be effective 
premature to the point of being of little use 
oily 
No Answer
7. “His [Trump’s] statements on Iran have been so contradictory it is unclear what his policy is there: regime change or a FOOTLING renegotiation of Barak Obama’s nuclear deal.” (2020-04-25, The Week, p. 22) Something “footling” is
inept or insignificant 
likely to have disastrous consequences 
highly touted but never carried out 
rebuilt from the ground up 
refounded and reformed 
No Answer
8. “Hezbollah began as an underground militant group that waged an insurgency against the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, which ended in 2000. Since then it has remained VIRULENTLY anti-Israel while accumulating greater power in Lebanon … .” (2020-05-01, NYT via SDUT, p. A2) Something or someone “virulent” is
self-consciously and violently hypermasculine 
steadfast 
malevolent 
superficially committed to a cause but ineffective in advancing it 
unobtrusively effective 
No Answer
9. “If [Doctors] Fauci and Birx [were to] quit, he’d simply replace them with unqualified loyalists who’d echo Trump’s disinformation. This is how Trump filled the Cabinet with spineless SYCOPHANTS.” (2020-05-15, Washington Post via The Week, p. 12) A “sycophant” is
appointed to a job or position because s/he is owed a favor 
is appointed to a job or position in order to put him or her in debt to the appointer 
a servile flatterer 
an incompetent person in a position of authority 
a spy or mole for a competing company or country 
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.



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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 March 24, 2015.