Jeffrey Friedl’s Blog » Blog Archive » “Word Power”: Jon Stewart and The Daily Show

“Word Power”: Jon Stewart and The Daily Show

September 21st, 2006 11:42am JST (1 year, 7 months ago)

Cumulative Reader's Digest “Word Power” posts:
(in reverse order of posting)

7.	Science Words
6.	Jon Stewart / The Daily Show
5.	Summer (“dog” and “can” words)
4.	Culinary Words
3.	Financial Parlance
2.	Scholastic Aptitude Test
1.	George Washington Inaugural Address

While I was in The States for the summer at our old house, I found out that my Reader's Digest subscription was still coming, so I have a recent “Word Power” to work with. This one comes from September 2006. (If anyone wants to send me a bunch of old Reader's Digests so that I can post more of these, I'd be appreciative!)

This one features words from Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. Apparently, this quiz is harder than most, because according to the scale, you can get two wrong and still be considered “exceptional.” I, of course, always miss ”exceptional“ by one or two.....

But not this time! For the first time in ages, I got them all right(!) Woo-hoo! Not only that, I didn't have to guess (too much).

How will you do?

Choose which of the four possible selections best represents the meaning of the word

1.	condone v. -- to regard as:	offensive. acceptable or harmless. the best. a secret.
2.	lemming n.	sour fruit. used car. short-tailed rodent. cold-water fish.
3.	satire n.	Indian lute. mythological horse. long speech. sarcastic wit.
4.	palatable adj.	inexperienced. agreeable. entertaining. wordy.
5.	arbiter n.	tree lover. flowering canopy. authoritative judge. felon.
6.	coercive adj.	all-inclusive. controlling by force. thoughtful. willing to work together.
7.	impugn v.	to advance or help. make something up. attack. protest.
8.	symbiosis n.	cooperative union. religious sign. argument premise. timely occurrence.
9.	skew v.	to criticize or mock. distort or slant. line up. spread evenly.
10.	vociferous adj. -- marked by:	loud outcry. violence. enthusiasm. fear.
11.	preclude v.	to introduce. form a group. go early or first. rule out.
12.	duplicitous adj.	repetitive. long-lasting. deceptive. flexible.
13.	catharsis n.	negative energy. purification. hollow tube. numerical problem.
14.	monolithic adj.	massive. speaking one language. exclusive. fruitful.
15.	dissonance n.	impaired hearing. good reputation. termination. lack of agreement.
16.	bifurcated adj.	divided in two. given back. clearly explained. verbally abused.

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Comments so far....

13! w00t! I am excellent.

— comment by Natali on September 21st, 2006 at 8:10pm JST (1 year, 7 months ago) — comment permalink

Wow, it says something about how The Daily Show is close to heart, I got 16/16.

And in all the years I’ve played with Word Power, that’s never happened….

— comment by mmk on September 22nd, 2006 at 1:58am JST (1 year, 7 months ago) — comment permalink

w00t, got them all….

However it is easier for me, since I am a native speaker of French, and many of the words listed here are from a Latin or Greek root. And since I am a fan of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe, whch are loaded with a vocabulary from another era, it sure helps…

— comment by dda on September 22nd, 2006 at 5:33am JST (1 year, 7 months ago) — comment permalink

Congratulations Jeff!

these are actually pretty typical SAT words for the medium-hard part of the SAT. So everyone go back and give yourselves an extra 80 points on the verbal section.

I’m usually pretty good at most of these. As long as they don’t do food again. That was scary.

I’d probably be really bad at fashion as well.

— comment by Sam on September 22nd, 2006 at 10:49am JST (1 year, 7 months ago) — comment permalink

Rats! Only 15 out of 16. I obviously need more tea before attempting these things.

[hangs head in shame]

— comment by Simon P. Chappell on September 22nd, 2006 at 11:14pm JST (1 year, 7 months ago) — comment permalink