Quiz created: 141005

Vocabulary Quiz 37

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. “The last government dithered and was preoccupied with bolstering India’s welfare state. India’s new rulers must be more strategic and RUTHLESS. Their task has three parts. …” (140517, The Economist p. 14) A “ruthless” government
includes no one named Ruth (i.e., no women) 
concerns itself with ethnicity, unlike the Biblical Ruth 
is governed entirely by economic considerations 
is incorruptible 
is merciless 
No Answer
2. “Mr Xi;s sweeping campaign against corruption, the toughest in China in many years, will make him powerful enemies. So too will his efforts to expose big state-owned enterprises to greater competition and rein in PROFLIGATE local governments.” (140531, The Economist, p. 38.) A “profligate” person or group
favors friends and relatives 
accepts bribes 
reports accomplishments that have not actually happened 
defies central authority 
spends large amounts of money wastefully 
No Answer
3. “Mr Jaitley had SHREWDLY supported [India’s newly elected prime minister] Mr Modi early in his bid to lead the BJP Bharatiya Janata Party].” (140531, The Economist, p. 33.) A person who does something “shrewdly”
does it in exchange for a later “payoff” 
acts unwillingly 
acts unwittingly but fortuitously 
seizes an opportunity before others know of it 
does it in a with an accurate calculation of the effects 
is concerned only with short-term, selfish advantage 
No Answer
4. “As it did in sanctioning unlimited contributions to Super PACs in Citizens United and other previous rulings, the court’s conservative majority equated money with free speech, thus helping the rich transform what is putatively a democratic republic into an unapologetic PLUTOCRACY.” (140425-TheWeek) A “plutocracy” is a
catastrophe 
corpse 
political theory as far from earthly reality as the planet Pluto 
political entity controlled by a small minority 
political entity controlled by rich people 
political entity that has gone to the dogs 
No Answer
5. “Once the preserve of prisoners, sailors, and circus freaks, tattoos have become a BENIGN rite of passage for many Americans. … But what happens when these people look for work? … Though increasingly mainstream, tattoos still signal a certain rebelliousness that works against jobseekers.” (140802, The Economist, p. 22) Something “benign” is
customary 
harmless or slightly beneficial 
potentially carcinogenic 
error-prone 
embarrassing 
unisex 
No Answer
6. “This is the first step in a long legal process that pits a group of … reformers against the “… powerful California Teachers Association and its CAPITOL allies, but this was big national news … .” (140612, San Diego Union Tribune, p. A2.) The word “capitol” refers to
a record company that contributes heavily to education in California 
excellence 
money allocated for investment or which has been invested 
the city where the government is located for a state or nation 
the building where a legislature meets 
No Answer
7. “In addition to opposing any new taxes and trying to shrink the government, the dehydrated form of conservatism espoused by the primary-swinging part of the base is characterised by a fervent opposition to immigration, a staunch defence of the rights of gun owners, a desire to restrict the reproductive rights of women, a remarkable refusal to countenance the need for any sort of climate policy, a suspicion of the Federal Reserve, and an ATAVISTIC veneration of the constitution.” (140614, The Economist, p. 24.) The term “atavistic” is borrowed from biology. A trait that is “atavistic” is one that
helps an organism’s adaptation to its environment 
hinders an organism’s adaptation to its environment 
returns to a trait of a remote ancestor, usually after being absent for several generations 
seems to serve no purpose in the life of the organism, such as the human appendix 
is associated with decreasing responsiveness to its environment as the organism faces death 
appears only in the organism’s old extreme age 
usually disappears as the organism matures 
is triggered by panic 
No Answer
8. “[At San Diego’s Point Loma Nazarene University] several low-enrollment majors will be phased out, including theater, family and consumer sciences, fashion and interiors, ROMANCE LANGUAGES, and a combined philosophy-theology major.” (140505, San Diego Union Tribune, p. A10) A department of “Romance Languages” probably teaches
fiction writing 
courtship and marriage counseling 
linguistics for humanities majors 
linguistics for science majors 
German and Russian 
Spanish and French 
Chinese and Japanese 
Esperanto 
No Answer
9. “Now in its 84th impression in Spanish, [Eduardo Galeano’s 1971 book Open Veins of Latin America] remains a fixture on the EXIGUOUS shelves devoted to Latin America in bookshops in Europe and the United States. In all, it has sold over a million copies.” (140614, The Economist, p. 32.)The shelves are “exiguous” because they are
widely ignored 
excessively numerous 
mostly devoted to politics 
filled with political propaganda 
scanty and inadequate 
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 August 28, 2014.