Quiz created: 2020-10-13

Vocabulary Quiz 90

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. “Trump, as well as top White House aides and members of his campaign, have repeatedly elevated the [QAnon] movement’s iconography and rallying cries —in an apparent embrace of the conspiracy theory, whose nucleus is FEALTY to the president.” (200820, Washington Post via SDUT, p. A-2) “Fealty” refers to
the loyalty of a feudal vassal to his lord 
acknowledgement of someone’s superior strength, knowledge, beauty, or other positive personal qualities 
unqualified love that is not understood by others 
profound and dangerous hostility 
unthinking behavior or behavior influenced by unrecognized influences 
No Answer
2. “[Secretary Steven] Mnuchin’s comments appear to suggest that the White House is not GIRDING for a clash over this spending deadline, …” The word “gird” is obsolete except in a few metaphorical expression. Originally it meant to
tie down a ship’s sails before a violent storm 
secure with a band or belt 
build a wall 
send out spies 
think or consider a plan of action, but not put it into effect 
No Answer
3. “But it’s the atmosphere of constant GRIFTING that’s most enlightening here [in Michael Cohen’s Disloyal, a memoir of his years as Donald Trump’s ‘fixer’].” (2020-09-23, The Week, p. 24) “Grifting” refers to
aimless drifting 
opportunism 
a constant focus on money 
lack of foresight 
swindling 
No Answer
4. “Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, had been due to visit [Bangladesh] in March, until the coronavirus SCUPPERED his trip. (2020-09-19, The Economist, p. 41) A “scupper” is a deck-level drain hole in the side of a ship to allow water to drain off the deck. As a verb, “to scupper” means to
sink a ship, especially on purpose 
clean up something dirty 
to pour water down a drain 
lighten a load 
drain out the baby with the bathwater 
No Answer
5. “The collective statement [in support of presidential candidate Biden] by 24 of the 35 living American Turning [Award] winners … lends considerable GRAVITAS to industry concerns about Trump’s immigration policies. “Gravitas” is being used at the very edge of its semantic range here, since it normally refers to a person (not a “concern”) characterized by
large size and heavy weight 
an important bureaucratic position 
well informed opinions 
a solemn demeanor 
No Answer
6. “In the new Ridley Scott-produced series, ‘Raised by Wolves,’ [Australian actor Travis] Fimmel plays Marcus, a burly, bearded guy with a MULLET, a knightly white surcoat, and a dark past, living among androids and animosity.” (2020-09-28, The New Yorker, p. 16) A “mullet” is a kind of fish, but the word also refers to
a kind of gun 
an adoring side-kick 
a haircut that is short on the sides and top but long in the back 
a private laboratory, usually in a tower of an ancient castle 
a withered arm or leg 
a pronounced limp 
No Answer
7. “‘I go to [religious] services to relax, to get away,’ he said. ‘It’s like a meditation. Sitting in front of a computer screen, when I’ve already been in front of one all day, doesn’t really do it.’ [Rabbi Diana] Fersko asked whether he’d attend a service EN PLEIN AIR. ‘Maybe,” he said.” (2020-09-28, The New Yorker, p. 19) The expression “en plein air,” borrowed from French but not italicized by the editors, means
outdoors 
without music 
with music 
held at night 
with friends 
No Answer
8. “[Jack] Quaid’s parents are actors Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan; his genes have endowed him with PARODICALLY sweet button features, which he scrunches to great effect as [the character] Hughie realizes, to his horror, that his girlfriend, Robin, with whom he has just been chatting on a New York City sidewalk, has been unceremoniously pulverized by the fastest man in the world, a superhero known as A-train.” (2020-09-28, The New Yorker, p. 74) The author means that Jack Quaid’s features are
genuinely and strikingly sweet 
an overdrawn, almost comic satire on sweet features 
the opposite of sweet, something like ominous or threatening 
endearingly asymmetrical 
disconcertingly lopsided 
No Answer
9. “Mr Biden might try to placate the left of his party by giving it lots of jobs in the regulatory apparatus where they would emit a CACOPHONY of left-sounding signals.” (2020-10-03, The Economist, p. 18) A “cacophony” (kah-KAH-fin-knee) is
a list 
the contents of a toilet 
discordant sounds 
a symphony 
a complex traffic intersection 
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.