Fill in the Blank
"The engineers created wind tunnels to __________, or imitate, different conditions a plane could encounter when flying."
Simulate
The weather is filling up both sky and earth with a horrifying tableau of animal carcasses
It's raining cats and dogs
Poor Juan does this
Censor
"Analyze" has three; this synonym has only two -- and all the remaining letters are the same consonant
Genuine enthusiasm
Real zeal
"But Juan wouldn’t indulge: any distraction could make him lose his edge and the perfect censor had to be alert, ________, attentive, and sharp to nab cheats."
Keen
The flying creature who rises foremost is likeliest to obtain what might prove to be the day's sole nourishment
The early bird gets the worm
Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn, and Mary Jackson were all this 10-letter adjective that means "able to study and assess"
Analytical
The word for this punctuation mark has two. And they kind of look like the punctuation mark, come to think of it
Colon
If you feel like your hairstyle's gotten a bit boring, you might suffer from this
Staid braid
"After that testing, pilots flew the planes, trying to ________ how the machines handled in the air."
Assess
Don't want to have to get more of something? Then make good use of the amount of it you already have
Waste not, want not
This word kind of sounds like "stay," kind of sounds like "stale" -- and describes exactly how boring you'll become if you stay in one place and never change
Staid
This word uses four of the five English language vowels -- maybe it's saving the fifth one for a plot twist later on
Foreshadowing
Synonym for "clever" combined with the term for making up a play on words
Cunning punning
Daily Double (and the crowd goes ***ooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhh***)
"Did the aircraft roll unexpectedly? Did it stall? Was it hard to guide or ________?"
If you keep a given amount of currency instead of spending it, it's basically like you were paid that same amount of currency for work...except it's work you didn't have to do
A penny saved is a penny earned
This two-part rhetorical strategy often includes a transition word like "so," "therefore," or "because"
Cause-and-Effect Statement
At 14 letters, this word is the longest on the quiz -- so it's perhaps unsurprising that its six vowels are also the most of any word on the quiz
Irreproachable
A craftsman who hews one type of coniferous tree into shape has done this
Refine pine
"It’s true that on the third day a fellow worker had his right hand blown off by a letter, but the division chief claimed it was sheer ________ on the victim’s part."
Negligence
Hey, quick tip for eating: Make sure you don't remove from the primary vessel of nourishment a greater amount by volume than you, yourself, will be able to consume comfortably
Don't bite off more than you can chew
Idiot
This conjunction is synonymous with "Although," has the same number of vowels, and is one letter shorter
Albeit
Daily Double (and the crowd goes ***ooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhh***)
If you use pronouns in your description of the time you accidentally dropped a rock on the hood of your Aunt C's car, you'd have this phrase, which might be one of the worst puns of all time