Basic
Hermann trembled like a tiger as he waited for the appointed time to arrive. At ten o'clock in the evening he was already in front of the Countess's house. The weather was terrible; the wind blew with great violence, the sleety snow fell in large flakes, the lamps emitted a feeble light, the streets were deserted; from time to time a sledge drawn by a sorry-looking hack, passed by on the lookout for a belated passenger. Hermann was enveloped in a thick overcoat, and felt neither wind nor snow.
Focused
Relaxed
Annoyed
Assured
Focused
Howard Carter was a real slowpoke. He spent ten years searching for the tomb. Then he took eight years to clear out over 5,000 objects and another ten years to list them all in detail. Carter was so thorough and patient that he didn't even open the first coffin until almost three years after he had found it! He wanted to be _____ .
Precise
critical
active
careless
precise
Aviation blossomed in the 1920s, and interest in parachutes also grew. The jump-and-pull backpack chute became common. It saved the lives of many people, including early flyer Charles A. Lindbergh four times. By the end of World War II, parachutes had saved more than 80,000 lives. Parachutes increased _____ .
Costs
Safefty
Business
Risks
Safety
The average cell phone user sends 41.5 texts each day, which equals 15,147 texts each year. Almost three-quarters of all mobile phone users text, and about 31 percent actually prefer texting to calling. People spend about 2.9 billion hours on YouTube each month, which is roughly the same as 326,294 years. An average of 490 million unique users log on each month, generating about 92 billion page views during each 30-day period. On January 22, 2010, NASA astronaut T.J. Creamer sent the first unassisted off-Earth tweet—"Hello Twitterverse! We r now LIVE tweeting from the International Space Station—the 1st live tweet from Space! :) More soon, send your ?s." Technology has enabled _____ communication.
Destructive
Copious
Monotonous
Paranoid
Copious
His boss ordered him to finish college at night and he did, earning a B.S. in rural sociology in 1964. And he moved up at the museum: to assistant to the administrator, then to assistant administrator, chief of programs, and director of the underwater archaeology unit. That one ended up in Townsend's lap because there was nobody else to do it at the time. He had to learn how to dive and how to preserve submerged artifacts. He was _____ .
Industrious
Unskilled
Unintelligent
Supportive
Industrious
He waited and waited. A day, maybe two, passed by while he nibbled on some flowers and chased a bird about the meadow. He idly spent his time scratching his back on the bark of a tree, or taking naps in the bright, golden sunlight
accomplish
read
cry
yell
accomplish
Bicycle manufacturers responded by making smaller bikes. These new bikes had very strong frames and small, sturdy tires. They were built for speed. They were also tough enough to jump over dirt mounds. The bikes were _____ .
Rugged
Broken
Costly
Stolen
Rugged
You probably think of popcorn as a snack for the movies. But did you know U.S. colonists ate popcorn for breakfast? They ate the popped kernels in a bowl of milk as cereal. Today, the breakfast seems _____ .
Peculiar
Humurous
Fancy
Revolutionary
Peculiar
: All at once the wolves began to howl as though the moonlight had had some peculiar effect on them. The horses jumped about and reared, and looked helplessly round with eyes that rolled in a way painful to see. But the living ring of terror encompassed them on every side, and they had perforce to remain within it. They were _____ .
Injured
Curious
Petrified
Foiled
Petrified
When the National Football League began its 40th season in 1960, it had a new and unwanted rival—the American Football League. At first, the NFL ignored the new league and its eight teams. They reasoned that football fans wouldn't waste their time and money watching NFL rejects in the AFL when they could watch the "real thing." The NFL was _____ .
Complacent
Ambitious
Unpopular
Attentive
Complacent
It was Emi who suddenly spoke up, her face flushed, her voice rising. "Well, I'm not going with you if you do," she said defiantly. And she picked up her dishes, marched to the dishwashing area where she quickly washed her dishes in the tub of soapy water, and left the building. She hadn't even waited for dessert.
firm
apologetic
thoughtful
impressed
firm
Alex took a deep breath and sat straighter. Cliff had rehearsed her. She should speak up, look Ms. Wilson straight in the eye, and elaborate on what was already in her application. "And, whatever you do, leave out the ers and uhs," he had said. She _____ Cliff's advice.
Remembered
Recorded
Disliked
Honored
Remembered
For three generations the Bells had been professors of the science of talking. They had even helped to create that science by several inventions. The first of them, Alexander Bell, had invented a system for the correction of stammering and similar defects of speech. The second, Alexander Melville Bell, was the dean of British elocutionists, a man of creative brain and a most impressive facility of rhetoric. He was the author of a dozen text-books on the art of speaking correctly, and also of a most ingenious sign-language which he called "Visible Speech." Their contributions were _____ .
Significant
Innapropriate
Dismal
Alarming
Significant
: You'll often see a warning sign on the bottle cap that states "Safety Button—Button pops up when original seal is broken." Manufacturers of these bottles seal the top onto the jar or bottle for one of two reasons. In some cases it is done so that air won't oxidize the contents and/or allow bacteria to grow. This gives the bottle a longer shelf life. The seal is also used to let consumers know that no one has tampered with the contents. Safety seals are _____ .
Obsolete
Beneficial
Old-Fashioned
Arbitrary
Beneficial
Now in that land there was a hunter with whom neither lasso nor arrow ever failed, and he had two sons, beautiful to look at and brave of heart, stout and quick of foot. Not only did the brothers work better than any men had ever worked, but they could play ball and sing, throwing the ball higher than birds could fly, and singing in a way that brought the wild things to hear them. Nor was there living creature able to run as swiftly as the two brothers. The birds alone could outrace them. The sons were _____ .
Unstable
Exceptional
Disreputable
Reliable
Exceptional
Many times, Jefferson has said that the U.S. government has the power to do only those things listed in the Constitution. Jefferson has said that a President should follow the words of the Constitution strictly. Otherwise, the people's liberties may be in danger. He believed government needed _____ .
limits
money
space
leaders
limits
For the rest of the night Tony tossed and turned, unable to sleep. When morning came, he felt as if a ton of bricks rested on his head. Still, he rose and got ready for school. He had a math test and a paper due in American Democracy. Tony was _____ .
Clever
Troubled
Filthy
Jolly
Troubled
Studies show that crowd activities involve four developmental stages: the occurrence of an exciting event that serves to mobilize people away from their ordinary routines; the physical and psychological milling of people, who became involved in a highly emotional circular type of interaction that serves to disseminate and intensify a common mood; polarization, or the development of a common focus on some unambiguous negative symbol; and the break, or flow of the crowd into overt action toward the symbol. Crowd behavior is _____ .
Systematic
Nomadic
Placid
Indistinguishable
systematic
: Nels Gudmundsson rose a second time, slipped his thumbs behind his suspenders, and noted with his one good eye that Judge Lew Fielding appeared half-asleep and was leaning heavily on the palm of his left hand, as he had throughout Horace's testimony. He was listening, Nels knew; his tired demeanor shielded an active mind from view. The judge liked to mull things soporifically. The judge's appearance was _____ .
Deceiving
Comforting
Colorful
Old-Fashioned
Deceiving
The thrush in my backyard sings down his nose in meditative, liquid rims of melody, over and over again, and I have the strongest impression that he does this for his own pleasure. Some of the time he seems to be practicing, like a virtuoso in his apartment. He starts a run, reaches a midpoint in the second bar where there should be a set of complex harmonics, stops, and goes back to begin over, dissatisfied. Sometimes he changes his notation so conspicuously that he seems to be improvising sets of variations. It is a meditative, questioning kind of music, and I cannot believe that he is simply saying, "thrush here." The thrush's music is _____ .
Enigmatic
Deplorable
Hysterical
Undetectable
Enigmatic
Friday, May 26. Dear Friend, Mister Joe ate with us again this evening, and I was glad. After supper, Ruth and I were cleaning the dishes, and I heard Mister Joe tell Luke a wonderful story. He said his mother had told it to him and her mother had told it to her. Now I will tell it to you. I will _____ the story.
repeat
change
forget
write
repeat
By the end of the term Burt noticed a difference during P.E. class. He ran up and down the basketball court without getting out of breath. He wasn't the last one to finish running around the track. He had improved his _____ .
Taste
Fitness
Pitch
Grades
Fitness
In January 1530, with three ships under his command, Pizarro departed from Spain. When finally he arrived in Panama, Luque and Almagro awaited him on the dock. Almagro in particular was furious to learn how small a share of the coming conquest he was to receive. He bitterly condemned Pizarro for breaking his word. Only after Luque convinced Pizarro to pledge an equal division of the profits among the three (following a deduction of the emperor's usual one-fifth share) did Almagro once again begin to smile. Almagro had felt _____ .
Betrayed
Confident
Guilty
Welcome
Betrayed
When it comes to legs, how about six for better stability, as some insects have? After all, two legs are really not very efficient for moving around. Just watch a small child learning to walk and you will see the quick adjustments the body must make at every step to keep from falling. You walk in the same way—you're just so much better at it that you aren't aware of the constant messages your brain sends to your muscles to keep you balanced. The body learns to _____ .
Compensate
Withdrawl
Conserve
Destroy
Compensate
Many of these inventions, such as the hay rake, mower, and a special plow for working on hills, helped the Shakers in their work. Among the many gadgets and tools in their workshops were the circular saw and an improved spinning wheel as well as a special loom for making narrow tapes for chair seats. Other inventions included the washing machine and several kinds of clothespins. The Shakers were also among the first people to use metal nibs in place of quills on their pens. The Shakers were _____ .
Ingenious
Negligent
Introspective
Reckless
Ingenious