The words used in this vocabulary quiz have been drawn from the following essays by Mark Twain:
- Advice to Youth
- Corn-Pone Opinions
- A Fable
- Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences
- How I Conquered Stage Fright
- On the Decay of the Art of Lying
- Two Ways of Seeing a River
Instructions:
For each of the sentences below, select the letter of the one item that most accurately defines the word in bold. When you're done, compare your responses with the answers on page two.
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Vocabulary Builder #2: Mark Twain's Words
- They said [my talk] should be something suitable to youth--something didactic, instructive, or something in the nature of good advice.
("Advice to Youth")
a) lively, humorous
b) immature, childish
c) intended to teach others
d) primarily designed for amusement or entertainment - There are many sorts of books; but good ones are the sort for the young to read. Remember that. They are a great, an inestimable, and unspeakable means of improvement.
("Advice to Youth")
a) too valuable to be properly measured or appreciated
b) outrageous, hard to believe
c) magnificent, larger than life
d) unable to be held, captured, or put into words - Our prose standard, three quarters of a century ago, was ornate and diffuse; some authority or other changed it in the direction of compactness and simplicity, and conformity followed, without argument.
("Corn-Pone Opinions")
a) having an ugly or mean disposition
b) showy or flowery
c) impenetrable, extremely hard to understand
d) in a foreign language - Our prose standard, three quarters of a century ago, was ornate and diffuse; some authority or other changed it in the direction of compactness and simplicity, and conformity followed, without argument.
("Corn-Pone Opinions")
a) intended to teach others
b) magnificent, larger than life
c) wordy, long-winded
d) confused - [The picture] is so dainty and charming and ethereal and inspiring in its unimaginable beauty that your head turns round and round, and you almost swoon with ecstasy.
("A Fable")
a) tiny, almost invisible
b) costly, extremely expensive, highly valuable
c) artificial
d) delicate, heavenly - [The picture] is so dainty and charming and ethereal and inspiring in its unimaginable beauty that your head turns round and round, and you almost swoon with ecstasy.
("A Fable")
a) dizziness, loss of balance
b) disbelief
c) an alcoholic drink
d) great joy or delight - The stream has bends in it, a sure indication that it has alluvial banks and cuts them; yet these bends are only thirty and fifty feet long. If Cooper had been a nice and punctilious observer he would have noticed that the bends were oftener nine hundred feet long than short of it.
("Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences")
a) very careful and exact
b) considerate, thoughtful
c) honest, truthful
d) prompt, always on time - The scow episode is really a sublime burst of invention; but it does not thrill, because the inaccuracy of the details throws a sort of air of fictitiousness and general improbability over it.
("Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences")
a) loud, explosive
b) extremely fast
c) grand, majestic
d) believable, convincing - If there is an awful, horrible malady in the world, it is stage-fright--and seasickness.
("How I Conquered Stage Fright")
a) a terrifying event or experience
b) illness, disease
c) sound, noise
d) story or legend - My complaint simply concerns the decay of the art of lying. No high-minded man, no man of right feeling, can contemplate the lumbering and slovenly lying of the present day without grieving to see a noble art so prostituted.
("On the Decay of the Art of Lying")
a) immoral, sinful
b) ongoing, persistent
c) clumsy, awkward
d) highly refined, expertly conducted - My complaint simply concerns the decay of the art of lying. No high-minded man, no man of right feeling, can contemplate the lumbering and slovenly lying of the present day without grieving to see a noble art so prostituted.
("On the Decay of the Art of Lying")
a) hard to believe, unconvincing
b) slow moving
c) outrageous, larger than life
d) careless, sloppy - The highest perfection of politeness is only a beautiful edifice, built, from the base to the dome, of graceful and gilded forms of charitable and unselfish lying.
("On the Decay of the Art of Lying")
a) a building
b) a lie
c) a run-down palace
d) an abandoned construction site - Among other common lies, we have the silent lie--the deception which one conveys by simply keeping still and concealing the truth. Many obstinate truth-mongers indulge in this dissipation, imagining that if they speak no lie, they lie not at all.
("On the Decay of the Art of Lying")
a) righteous, virtuous, perfectly wonderful
b) stubborn, firmly refusing to change one's behavior or habits
c) private, secretive
d) thick, slow to respond, unintelligent - Among other common lies, we have the silent lie--the deception which one conveys by simply keeping still and concealing the truth. Many obstinate truth-mongers indulge in this dissipation, imagining that if they speak no lie, they lie not at all.
("On the Decay of the Art of Lying")
a) useless or profitless activity
b) morally upright behavior, righteousness
c) deceptive, or hypocritical behavior
d) silent, uncommunicative way of behaving - Now when I had mastered the language of this water and had come to know every trifling feature that bordered the great river as familiarly as I knew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition.
("Two Ways of Seeing a River")
a) major, important
b) minor or insignificant
c) troublesome, annoying
d) appropriate, relevant
