Every week she meets with a small circle of _____ souls whose greatest interest in life is the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Rioters smashed windows and _____ government offices as they attempted to overthrow the dictator.
A person who behaves with _____ disregard for the feelings of others is likely to have very few friends.
He found a comfortable _____ for himself at a bank and worked there quite happily for more than forty years.
Although I was furious, I faced my accusers with a _____ smile.
We are now learning the hard way that our energy sources are not _____ and that we will have to use them carefully.
You will learn that nothing is more _____ than to face a problem squarely, analyze it clearly, and resolve it successfully.
The spirit of the new law to protect consumers is not “Let the buyer beware” but, rather, “Let the _____ beware.”
My next-door neighbor is a(n) _____ individual with a remarkable talent for boring me out of my wits.
What is important for the children is not a(n) _____ recital of the poem but an understanding of what the words really mean.
Rather than _____ their religious faiths, many Protestants, Catholics, and Jews left Europe to settle in the New World.
I _____ my brain feverishly, but I was unable to find any way out of the difficulty.
In Dickens's novel Oliver Twist, the protagonist is so _____ that he does not understand that he is being trained to become a pickpocket.
The beginning of commercial television in the 1940s marked a revolutionary _____ in the history of mass communications.
Several _____ at the fair were giving away free samples to entice customers to buy their wares.
Whenever my supervisor gets into one of his _____ moods, I know that I'm in for some high drama before the day is out.
Some people are worried that sizable asteroids could hit Earth and _____ entire cities.
They claim to have “buried the hatchet,” but I fear they have only declared a temporary _____ in their feud.
Over the years, the vigorous foreign policy that this country pursued greatly _____ our role in world affairs.
The excuse that he offered for his absence was so _____ and improbable that it fell apart as soon as we looked into it.
The business had been losing money for years; but thanks to new management, it is once again _____ .
The job of a mediator is to help _____ parties find a basis for settling their differences.
Can anyone be so _____ as to believe that all famous people who endorse products on TV actually use those products?
I am willing to forgive you, but I don't know if I can ever _____ the memory of your dishonesty from my mind.
Cleaning house is not a difficult chore; it's simply _____ .
DIRECTIONS:
1. Read the following excerpts that contain vocabulary words from this unit. The vocabulary words are written in bold font.
2. Select the answer that best completes each question. (5 points)
*You may only select one option for your answer.
EXCERPT #1 Question: Something that is bland is NOT _____ .
EXCERPT #2:
“But it is more than ten years since Henry Jekyll became too fanciful for me. He began to go wrong, wrong in mind. . . . Such unscientific balderdash,” added the doctor, flushing suddenly purple, “would have estranged Damon and Pythias.”
EXCERPT #2 Question: When people are estranged, they are _____ .
EXCERPT #3 Question: A sadness that is infinite is _____ .
EXCERPT #4:
For two months, however, I was true to my determination; for two months I led a life of such severity as I had never before attained to, and enjoyed the compensations of an approving conscience. But time began at last to obliterate the freshness of my alarm; the praises of conscience began to grow into a thing of course.
EXCERPT #4 Question: To obliterate something is to _____ .
EXCERPT #5:
At this moment, however, the rooms bore every mark of having been recently and hurriedly ransacked; clothes lay about the floor, with their pockets inside out; lock-fast drawers stood open; and on the hearth there lay a pile of grey ashes, as though many papers had been burned.
EXCERPT #5 Question: Something ransacked has been _____ .
DIRECTIONS:
1. Read the following passage that contains vocabulary words from this unit. The vocabulary words are written in bold font.
2. Select the answer that best completes each question. (6 points)
*You may only select one option for your answer.
PASSAGE:
Today, potato chips are generally considered to be junk food. But they once occupied a niche on the menus of elegant restaurants. It all started in the 1700s, when Thomas Jefferson brought a recipe for French fries to America from France. French fries came to be regarded as serious food. By the mid-1800s, they could be found among the side dishes on restaurant menus. Then, in 1853, the demands of an irascible diner and a chef’s annoyance ushered in a new epoch in eating.
George Crum, a Native American, worked as a chef at Moon Lake Lodge, a stylish restaurant at a resort in Saratoga Springs, New York. One evening, a customer complained that Crum’s usual French fries were too thick. Crum prepared a new batch, this time sliced more thinly. But the arrogant diner sent the second batch back, too.
Crum was upset. He recognized that it was his job to gratify the wishes of the customer, but he was frustrated. He decided to slice a third batch of potatoes wafer-thin. The slices were so thin, in fact, that after they were fried, they could not be jabbed with a fork.
To Crum’s surprise, the finicky customer pronounced the crisp, crunchy, thin potatoes delicious! Other diners begged to try Crum’s new "chips." Soon, George Crum opened his own restaurant. The specialty of the house was, of course, potato chips.
Although the chips soon became popular restaurant fare, they did not become a common snack until much later. It was tedious work to peel and cut potatoes by hand—the only option in George Crum’s day. But in the 1920s, the mechanical potato peeler was invented, which made the widespread commercial manufacture of potato chips possible.
The meaning of niche is _____ .
Irascible is best defined as _____ .
Epoch most nearly means _____ .
The meaning of arrogant is _____ .
Gratify is best defined as _____ .
Tedious most nearly means _____ .
DIRECTIONS:
1. Read each sentence and determine if the bold portion could be written better.
2. Select the answer that best completes each question. (6 points)
*You may only select one option for your answer.
PASSAGE:
Wolverines are carnivorous mammals native to cold northern latitudes. With a broad, rounded head, small eyes, and short, rounded ears, a wolverine somewhat resemble a miniature bear. In fact, wolverines are the largest terrestrial members of the weasel family (Mustelidae) and thus they are related to skunks, otters, and badgers. The coat of a wolverine is dark brown, and the fur is thick and glossy. Males are usually 30 percent to 40 percent more larger than females; an adult male wolverine weighs anywhere from 11 to 18 kilograms (24 to 45 pounds.).
Wolverines have a circumpolar distribution corresponding along the boreal zone of the northern hemisphere. They are found in Russia, northern Canada, and Alaska. In the adjacent 48 states, although wolverines used to range in the northernmost tier of states from Maine to Washington, only Idaho and Montana are known to have wolverine populations today. The strength, courage, and voracity of wolverines are legendary. Powerful built animals, they have been known to attack small bears several times their size.
Bold Section #1
Bold Section #2
Bold Section #3
Bold Section #4
Bold Section #5
Bold Section #6
A process that is long and tiresome can be described as _____ .
Which of the following is the opposite of sophisticated?
A person who sells something can be called a(n) _____ .
Which of the following is another word for rummage?
If you are doing your chores in an unthinking, mechanical way, you are doing them by _____ .
To drift apart or become unfriendly is to _____ .
A liquid used to dissolve substances is a(n) _____ .
Which of the following might be another word for similar?
If you have found a suitable position within a volunteer group, you have found your _____ .
Music that has been made louder has been _____ .
A wooden fence that looks as if it is ready to collapse can be described as _____ .
Which of the following is the opposite of admit?
DIRECTIONS:
1. Read the following passage that contains vocabulary words from this unit. The vocabulary words are written in bold font.
2. Select the answer that best completes each question. (4 points)
*You may only select one option for your answer.
PASSAGE:
Today, November 11th is called Veteran’s Day in the United States, but this holiday was not always known by this name. In the epoch between World Wars I and II, November 11 was set aside to mark the day that an armistice took place on most of the battlefields of World War I. The day, called Armistice Day in some of the countries that had fought and Remembrance Day in others, had another and even more important purpose. It honored the soldiers who had been killed in the war and gave their friends and loved ones an opportunity to express their infinite sorrow over those who had died young and the bright futures that had been obliterated. In 1954, almost ten years after the end of World War II, Congress changed the name of the holiday in the United States and broadened its purpose. Now called Veteran’s Day, it honors not only those who gave their lives during wartime but also all who have served their country in the armed forces.
An epoch (sentence 2) is a _____ .
In sentence 2, armistice means _____ .
Which of the following could not be used to replace infinite (sentence 4)?
If futures are obliterated (sentence 4), they are _____ .
DIRECTIONS:
1. Read the following passage that contains vocabulary words from this unit. The vocabulary words are written in bold font.
2. Select the answer that best completes each question. (4 points)
*You may only select one option for your answer.
PASSAGE:
Because we formed a basketball team at our school for the first time this year, we needed to decide on a team name and create a drawing of a mascot. Nadine, our team captain, also happens to be a very talented artist. As a result, each time we seriously considered a name, we asked her to create a drawing that showed what corresponding mascot might look like. The first name we suggested was the Hawks. We soon rejected it, however, because we thought the animal looked too arrogant when Nadine showed it to us. We also rejected our second idea, which was the Bulldogs. The bulldog in the picture looked irascible, and so we decide that it would not be a good image for our team. For our third idea, we went in a different direction and considered calling ourselved the Jackrabbits. Once we saw Nadine’s drawing, however, we decided this image might be too bland. Finally, we were relieved when we made our fourth suggestion—the Coyotes—and liked the picture very much. We are now gratified to call ourselved by that name.
Which of the following could not be used to replace arrogant (line 5)?
To look irascible (line 6) is to appear _____ .
Which of the following words could be used to replace bland (line 9)?
In line 10, gratified means _____ .