Quiz created: 2020-10-13

Vocabulary Quiz 88

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. “A historian …, Maurice Lever, claims that these neurotic FLIBBERTIGIBBETS, hysterical, narcissistic, affected, mincing, and ogling, are archetypes of later caricature.” (2020-07/8, G&LR, p. 15) A flibbertigibbet is
a teenager 
a particularly obvious and unskilled social-climber 
a young person with inherited wealth 
a superficial motormouth 
a person with post-traumatic stress syndrome 
No Answer
2. “President Trump has dismissed the idea of wearing one [mask] himself, and anti-lockdown demonstrators have ridiculed masks as tools of “the nanny state.” The RIFT is now triggering confrontations. The word “rift” refers to
strong emotion, especially anger 
a stubbornly held opinion or position 
a contradiction between what one expects and what actually happens 
a fissure or crack 
No Answer
3. “Coronavirus Casts PALL Over Fourth Festivities” (2020-07-05, SDUT Headline, p. A1) Although the word is usually used figuratively, a “pall” is literally
a fog 
sadness 
an eclipse of the sun or moon 
(1) a cloth cover for a coffin or (2) a plague of birds or insects so dense as to blot out the sun 
a dark cape worn against inclement weather 
No Answer
4. “During an earlier conference call with governors, DeVos LACED INTO school administrations that have done ‘next to nothing’ to educate students during the pandemic.” (2020-07-08, NYT via SDUT, p. A-6) The term “laced into” has become obsolete, probably because it is far from the root meaning of “lace.” The far more common verb in this context would be
landed 
lingered 
leapt 
leveled 
lit 
labeled 
No Answer
5. “Mr Biden’s candidacy was about restoration —the idea that he could return America and the world to the PRELAPSARIAN days of 2016. It transpires that he could have the opportunity to do something big instead.” (2020-07-04, The Economist, p. 9) “Prelapsarian” refers to
the time before the Fall of Adam 
the period when a dog’s dish is newly washed and filled, before the dog begins to eat from it 
any period of public optimism and cooperation, usually a goal or future state 
the time when runners are still warming up for a race 
No Answer
6. “And Texas is one of the most politically torn states of all. Its Republican rulers, grown DECADENT by decades in power, are bitterly feuding even as a tsunami of politico-demographic change rushes towards them.” (2020-07-04, The Economist, p. 24) A “decadent” (DECK-a-dent) ruler is one
in a state of self-indulgent decline 
who keeps close watch over money 
who tends to take chances 
is congenitally quarrelsome 
inattentive to anybody’s welfare, including his own 
No Answer
7. “And Narendra Modi, the [Indian] prime minister, is veering towards a policy of CAPRICIOUS self-reliance. This week India banned 59 Chinese-made apps, including TikTok.” (2020-07-04, The Economist, p. 11) Mr Modi’s policy-making is capricious because it seems to be
accidental 
unrealistic 
self-destructive 
optimal 
much-needed 
impulsive and unpredictable 
effective 
No Answer
8. “All re-election bids are to a large extent referendums on the incumbent; this one is little else. Looking like a plausible president, the support of the party, and not being Mr Trump seem to be more or less all that is required of Mr Biden, and the polls show that his familiar, unchallenging AVUNCULARITY is meeting the challenge well; a comforting figure for an uncomfortable time.” (2020-07-04, The Economist, p. 16) Someone who exhibits “avuncularity”
is a fresh face 
is even-tempered despite steely resolve 
seems uncle-like 
is excellent at negotiations 
has extensive but largely obsolete or obsolescent experience 
No Answer
9. “A series of odd explosions in Iran may AUGUR a return to the shadow war over its nuclear programme.” (2020-07-11, The Economist, p. 38) “Augury” refers to
making something impractical or excessively expensive 
prohibiting something or making it impossible 
causation 
fortune telling 
profit-taking 
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.