Quiz created: 190420

Vocabulary Quiz 70

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. “Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has listed 12 ‘basic requirements’ Iran must fulfill in order to avoid ‘the strongest sanctions in history’—assuming, perhaps fancifully, that Russia, China, and other nations will tug their forelocks and comply with Trump administration UKASES.” (180610 George Will, Washington Post via SDUT, p. B8) A “ukase” is a
policy 
song or the lyrics from a song 
musical instrument 
dance tune 
administrative decree, especially in czarist Russia 
No Answer
2. “The emphasis [in the film about fashion designer Alexander McQueen] was more on the clothes than on the ripped and messy life of the man who created them, and, if you were to driven to speculate on the fertile MURK of his mind, so much the better.” (180730, The New Yorker, p. 68) “Murk” refers to
dense fog 
filth 
fertilized soil 
inspiration 
religious commitment 
No Answer
3. “Several thousand tonnes of North Korean coal, marked as Russian, made it to ports around Asia last year. Ship-to-ship transfers in the East China Sea or the Sea of Japan are another, albeit riskier, ploy. American and Japanese SPOOKS report 89 transfers of refined oil products between January and May this year, evading UN-imposed caps on fuel imports. (180728, The Economist, p. 27) “Spook” is a slang term referring to
a spy 
an satellite surveillance system 
a financial analyst 
a forensic investigation 
No Answer
4. “Several thousand tonnes of North Korean coal, marked as Russian, made it to ports around Asia last year. Ship-to-ship transfers in the East China Sea or the Sea of Japan are another, ALBEIT riskier, ploy. American and Japanese spooks report 89 transfers of refined oil products between January and May this year, evading UN-imposed caps on fuel imports. (180728, The Economist, p. 27) The word “albeit,” meaning “although,” is pronounced
ALL-beet 
all-BEET 
all-BE-it 
ALL-be-it 
ALL-bite 
all-BITE 
ALL-bait 
all-BAIT 
No Answer
5. “… police can fire their weapons under legislation that cleared its first hurdle Tuesday after an emotionally charged debate over deadly shootings that have ROILED the country.” (180620-SDUT-A1 --> “To roil” is here used figuratively, but literally it means to
agitate or stir up (especially in a way that brings sediment to the surface of a liquid) 
to invert 
to raise the temperature to just below the boiling point 
to heat a liquid until it “boils over” its container 
to spread out, like a spilled liquid 
to invade a new environment, as an intrusive plant species 
No Answer
6. “The Benalla affair has pulled off the remarkable achievement of uniting the far-right’s Marine Le Pen and the far-left’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who likened it, TENDENTIOUSLY, to Watergate. Mr Macron’s polls ratings, meanwhile, continue to sink; …” (180728, The Economist, p. 39) A person who is “tendentious”
likes to argue for the sake of arguing 
takes positions dictated by public opinion 
is strongly opinionated or partisan 
allows no one else to speak 
makes statements intended to be dramatic, while knowing them to be untrue 
No Answer
7. “Here the devious skipper, his cringing son, and his VIRAGO wife (who beat to death her other son a few months earlier) live in rowdy squalor while in the bows sixteen rowers heave against the current and curl into wadded quilts at night, lost in opium sleep, and sometimes invade the author’s cabin. It is freezing cold.” (180719, New York Review of Books, p. 46) A “virago” is
a noisy, scolding woman 
a kind of sea monster feared by the ancient Romans 
a kind of sea monster feared in the seas of Southeast Asia 
a person who can foretell the future 
a gigantic, strong person 
an extremely fat person 
No Answer
8. “In the American republic’s slow transformation into a judicial-executive DYARCHY, with a vestigial legislature that lets the major controversies get settled by imperial presidents and jurists, Anthony Kennedy occupied a particularly important role.” (180703 Ross Douthat, NYT via SDUT p. B5) One rarely encounters the rare word “dyarchy,” also spelled “diarchy,” but because its underlying Greek roots are found in so many other English words, it is easy to understand that it means
chaos 
hostility 
governance by two rulers 
paralysis and/or death throes 
legal but informal alliance 
illegal alliance 
antagonistic relationship 
No Answer
9. “In the American republic’s slow transformation into a judicial-executive dyarchy, with a VESTIGIAL legislature that lets the major controversies get settled by imperial presidents and jurists, Anthony Kennedy occupied a particularly important role.” (180703 Ross Douthat, NYT via SDUT p. B5) Something “vestigial” is
leftover from past and performing no significant current function 
ceremonial 
serving to conceal, like a veneer or decorative covering 
well-dressed 
No Answer

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This consummately cool, pedagogically compelling, self-correcting,
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