Reader's Digest

144 | July• 2018

Answers

WORD POWER

VOCABULARY RATINGS

7-10:Fair

11–12:Good

13–15: Word Power Wizard

9.troika–[B]groupofthree.

We lef t t he organisat ion of t he staf

party to the capable troika of Jane

Sam and Cara.

10.calibrate–[A]adjustaccording

toastandard.hepostoice

calibratesitsscaleseachmorning

before opening for business.

11.manifold–[A]numerous

and varied. here are manifold

reasons why Cory’s time machine

experiment failed.

12.quota–[C]

preset percentage.

Each fruit-picker

wasexpectedto

meetaquotaof

sixfullbasketsof

apples a day.

13.brace–[A]pair.

We just adopted a

brace of puppies

so it’s kind of crazy

around our house.

14.ream–

[A] quantity

ofpaper.Steveloadedafresh

ream into the printer.

15.cubed–[C]multipliedby

itself twice. hree cubed is 27.

1.fourscore–[C]80.hat’sthe
strangest thing I’ve heard in all
my fourscore years.

2.tabulate–[B]countorarrange
systematically.hecommittee
hastabulatedthevotes–and
determined that it’s a tie!

3.copious– [A] plentiful. Harriet’s
notesfromthehistorylectureare
copious but completely illegible.

4.watt–[A]unitofpower.
Do you know how
many watts your
electrical appliances
use each day?

5.aggregate–[B]
amountingtoa
whole. Analysts
are expecting the
aggregate demand
for electric cars to
skyrocket.

6.googol–[C]
he number one
followed by 100
noughts. We all
agreed that Emile’s chances of dating
Jacqueline are about one in a googol.

7.paucity–[B]shortage.Giventhe
paucityofwitnessesthedetective
releasedthemurdersuspect.

8.myriad–[C]countless.
he darkening sky gradually
revealed a myriad of stars.

THAT NAME IS DEEP

When the young US writer

Samuel Clemens worked as

a Mississippi riverboat pilot

he surely saw crewmen

‘sounding’ the river –

measuring its depth – with

the call “mark twain!” This

meant they had measured

two fathoms; a single fathom

was six feet; ‘twain’ means

‘two’. Clemens first used the

byline Mark Twain in 1863 as

a newspaper reporter.