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Sample questions from our Accent on Academics publication for the September 6, 2004, Volume 20/2

 

1)   What numerical name, drawn from the section of the tax code that covers them, is being used for the outside groups putting out attack ads, such as the Swift Boat Veterans' ad that the Kerry campaign has asked Bush to denounce?

Answer:  527s (in response, Bush denounced all such ads, but not it specifically). 

2)   Identify the American poet who wrote the lines "And, as she looked around, she saw how Death, the consoler, / Laying his hand upon many a heart, had healed it forever" in his poem Evangeline.

Answer:  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 

3)   Which state is the site of the National Park Service's First Ladies National Historic Site, one part of which is located in the family home of Ida Saxton McKinley, wife of President William McKinley, in the city of Canton?

Answer:  Ohio (a 6-story building in the same city now houses most of the material). 

4)   Identify the Gustave Flaubert title character whose first name is Emma.

Answer:  Emma Bovary (in Madame Bovary). 

5)   What is the popular name given to the dance Salome performed before Herod Antipas in Richard Strauss' Salome, leading him to promise her anything, and enabling her, at her mother's request, to ask for and be given the head of John the Baptist on a platter?

Answer:  Dance of the Seven Veils. 

Sample questions from our Accent on Academics publication for the September 13, 2004, Volume 20/3 
1)       Which country is being supported by Muslim leaders there and abroad in its refusal to give in to an Iraqi militant group's demand to lift a ban on Muslim head scarves in schools to save the lives of 2 of its journalists being held hostage?
Answer:  France (ban applies to crosses and yarmulkes as well).
2)         Which name is shared by all of the following: a Saturn satellite; a North Temperate Zone orchid; a sea nymph who kept Odysseus on her island of Ogygia for 7 years; a type of Caribbean folk music; and Jacques Cousteau's oceanographic ship?
Answer:  Calypso.
3)         Identify the Cassini probe companion sent to explore Saturn's largest moon, a craft named appropriately after the Dutch astronomer who was the first to understand Saturn's rings and discover its largest satellite.
Answer:  Huygens (after Christiaan Huygens; Cassini will release Huygens in December             to parachute through the
4)         Identify the Spanish writer whose epitaph reads: "For if he like a madman lived, / At least he like a wise one died." He wrote Don Quixote.
Answer:  Cervantes.
5)         Identify the name shared by the queen of the Netherlands who succeeded to the throne in 1980 on the abdication of her mother, Queen Juliana, and _____ Portinari, the Florentine woman who was the beloved of Dante.
Answer:  Beatrice (the queen's name is also spelled Beatrix).
Sample questions from our Accent on Academics publication for the September 20, 2004, Volume 20/4
1)         Identify the state whose Great Sand Dunes National Monument was recently classified as a national park by Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton.
Answer:  Colorado.
2)         Which word beginning with F designates an object believed to have magic power as in some African mythologies?
Answer:  Fetish.
3)         Which word for "a scolding, evil-tempered woman" also designates one of the smallest mammals, a mouse-like creature with a pointed snout?
Answer:  Shrew.
4)         Which word for "a narrow, conventional businessman who is indifferent to cultural values" comes from the title of a 1922 Sinclair Lewis novel?
Answer:  Babbitt.
5)         Identify the candidate who trailed behind economist Henry George in the 3-way race  for mayor of New York City in 1886 but later became governor of the state and after that President of the United States.
Answer:  Theodore Roosevelt.
Sample questions from our Accent on Academics publication for the September 27, 2004, Volume 20/5
1) Identify the country whose Islamic-rooted ruling party is pressing ahead with its plan to criminalize adultery even though the decision may prevent the nation from joining the European Union. Recep Tayyip Erdogan is its prime minister.
Answer: Turkey.
2) Which verb beginning with R means to send an accused person or prisoner back into custody, as to await a trial or more investigation, or to send a case back to a lower court?
Answer: Remand.
3) Which word designates all of the following: that part of the parachute that opens up; the transparent hood over an airplane's cockpit; and the drapery over a bed or throne?
Answer: Canopy.
4) Identify the Bantu name, literally meaning "the fly that kills animals," for the insect of central and South Africa that causes sleeping sickness.
Answer: Tsetse fly.
5) Identify the 3-word phrase derived from Acts 2:1-13 that in short designates glossolalia, that is, the divine gift of being able to speak in various languages as conferred upon the Apostles by the Holy Ghost at Pentecost.
Answer: Gift of tongues.
Sample questions from our Accent on Academics publication for the October 4, 2004, Volume 20/6
1) Name the U.S.'s largest city below sea level where Louis Armstrong Airport was closed and residents were evacuated as Hurricane Ivan approached, threatening a 300-mile swath from Florida to Louisiana.
Answer: New Orleans (up to 10 feet below sea level in spots; last direct hit in 1965).
2) Which word as a verb means to speak in a vague or indecisive manner and as a noun designates a batter cake like a pancake but with a gridlike surface?
Answer: Waffle.
3) Identify the silver-white, brittle element found in platinum ores and named by an English chemist from the Greek word for "rainbow" because its salts usually have varied colors. Its atomic number is 77, and its symbol is Ir.
Answer: Iridium (first derived from the name of Iris, Greek goddess of the rainbow).
4) Which word completes the following passage from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "Elizabeth": "_____ that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing"?
Answer: "Ships."
5) Which symbol of Christ used since the 2nd century A.D. is based on the Greek word, or acronym, formed from the initial letters of the words Iesous CHristos, THeou Uios, Soter, meaning "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour"?
Answer: Fish (from the Greek, ichthus).