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Sample questions from our Accent on Academics publication for the May, June, July 2004 Bonus Issue

 1)    Identify the head of the CIA who in early June announced his resignation, effective in July, saying he did so for personal reasons.                               

Answer:  George Tenet (Deputy Director John McLaughlin is acting director).  

 2)    Which word designates all of the following: the kind of wood Genesis 6:14 says was used to make Noah's ark; a burrowing land tortoise; a ball hit for a home run; and a person living in Minnesota?

Answer:  Gopher.  

 3)    Identify the severe, often fatal hemorrhagic fever of humans and monkeys that is named after a river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire), where it was first found in 1976.

Answer:  Ebola.  

 4)    Identify the title of Eugene O'Neill's 1933 play set in 1906 that is his only pure comedy, one he called a "comedy of recollection." 

Answer:  Ah, Wilderness!.  

 5)  Which term, derived from the Greek word baros, meaning "weight," designates the branch of medicine concerned with obesity? 

Answer:  Bariatrics.

May, June, July 2004             Bonus Issue - Highlights 

     1)   When in late spring the formerly hostile Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi visited Europe, what branch was he said to be carrying as a metaphor for his mission of peace?                                

     Answer:  Olive branch (he asked EU to help in "tragedy in Iraq")

 2)  In the spring, Thai police killed 113 people of its minority religion in   an uprising in the southern peninsula where they are centered.    Name  both Thailand's major religion and this minority one.   

Answer:  Buddhist (95%) and Muslim (Islamic, 5%).  

 3)  Which country now flies a newly adopted flag with a blue crescent on a white background above 2 dark blue stripes, representing the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and a yellow stripe, for the Kurds? 

Answer:  Iraq (U.S. returned control of Iraq to its prime minister on June 28)  

 4)  Which group added Cyprus, Malta, and 8 formerly Communist countries in May to become a 25-member economic giant?      

Answer: European Union (giving it a population of 450 million,     larger than all countries but China and India).