Instructions:

Select the word in each set that completes the sentence accurately and appropriately. (If you're not sure of the correct answer, follow the links to
our Glossary of Usage3 for explanations and examples.) When you have completed the quiz, compare your responses with the answers on page
two4.

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1. Afterward(s) or Afterword5
"Is it really so difficult to tell a good action from a bad one? I think one usually knows right away or a moment _____, in a horrid flash
of regret."
(Mary McCarthy)

2. Angel or Angle6
"He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of _____ food."
(Raymond Chandler)

3. Anonymous or Unanimous7
"The National Academy of Sciences would be unable to give a _____ decision if asked whether the sun would rise tomorrow."
(Paul Ehrlich)

4. Ardent or Arduous8
"Peace is not only better than war but infinitely more _____."
(George Bernard Shaw)

5. Ascent or Assent9
"That all men are equal is a proposition to which, at ordinary times, no sane human being has ever given his _____."
(Aldous Huxley)

6. Band or Banned10
"The first modern jazz _____ ever heard in New York, or, perhaps anywhere, was organized at The Marshall."
(James Weldon Johnson, "The Making of Harlem"11)

7. Bolder or Boulder12
"There is a giant sandstone _____ about a mile north of Old Laguna, on the road to Paguate. It is ten feet tall and twenty feet in
circumference."
(Leslie Marmon Silko, "Legend of the Yellow Woman and the Giant"13)

8. Brake or Break14
"You can _____ every grammatical and syntactical rule consciously when, and only when, you have rendered yourself incapable of
_____ing them unconsciously."
(Bernard Levin)

9. Canvas or Canvass15
Human beings have dreams. Even dogs have dreams, but not you. You are just a machine, an imitation of life. Can a robot write a
symphony? Can a robot turn a _____ into a beautiful masterpiece?
(Will Smith as Detective Del Spooner in I, Robot)

10. Chafe or Chaff16

Human males are unique. Fathers continue to regard their sons as children even into adulthood, and sons continue to _____ against
what they perceive as their fathers' expectations of them.
(Marina Sirtis as Counselor Deanna Troi in Star Trek: The Next Generation)

11. Childish or Childlike17

The key to faking out the parents is the clammy hands. It's a good non-specific symptom; I'm a big believer in it. . . . You fake a
stomach cramp, and when you're bent over, moaning and wailing, you lick your palms. It's a little _____ and stupid, but then, so is
high school.
(Matthew Broderick as Ferris in Ferris Bueller's Day Off)

12. Deprecate or Depreciate18

"Those who profess to favor freedom, yet _____ agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground."
(Frederick Douglass)

13. Diagnosis or Prognosis19

"Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple _____ of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are
identifiable villains back of it all."
(John W. Gardner)
14. Emigrate or Immigrate20
In their benevolence, the Federation allowed them to _____ to the Outer Worlds. Like your family, they were executed on arrival.
(Robert Beatty as Bran Foster in Blake's 7)

15. Evoke or Invoke21

"Good writing is supposed to _____ sensation in the reader--not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon."
(E.L. Doctorow)

16. Exhort or Extort22

"Carmine, I don't think it's right that you should _____ money from the college."
(John Vernon as Dean Vernon Wormer in Animal House)

17. Garner or Garnish23

"We _____ our treasures, our jewels so bright, and we worship our idols of clay."
(H. Clay Preuss)

18. Grisly or Grizzly24

Mexico's famous Day of the Dead festival, with its _____ yet comic cavortings of the dead, recalls the skull motifs and sacrifices of
the lost world of Moctezuma.

19. Heard or Herd25

"Like the _____ animals we are, we sniff warily at the strange one among us."
(Loren Eiseley)

20. Hoarse or Horse26

Miss Raswani walked straight as a ramrod, her sari always severely pinned and pleated, her thick white hair pulled back in a tight bun.
Her pupils had a white rim around them. She had a loud, _____ voice that terrorized the whole entire school.
(Nayana Currimbhoy, Miss Timmins' School for Girls)

21. Hole or Whole27

What happened down in the dungeon between you and Professor Quirrell is a complete secret. So, naturally, the _____ school knows.
(Richard Harris as Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone)

22. Incidence or Incidents28

"No hunter stalking his prey is more alert to the presence of his quarry than a writer looking for small _____ that cast a strong light on
human behavior."
(Norman Cousins)

23. Incite or Insight29

"A bad writer is a writer who always says more than he thinks. A good writer--and here we must be careful if we wish to arrive at any
real _____--is a writer who does not say more than he thinks."
(Walter Benjamin)

24. Manner or Manor30

Somewhere in the English countryside, in a stately _____ home, Madonna is weeping!
(Jane Lynch as Sue Sylvester in Glee)

25. Medal, Metal, or Mettle31

"I can sum it all up in just one word: courage, dedication, daring, pride, pluck, spirit, grit, _____, and g-u-t-s--guts."
(Lloyd Bridges as Steven McCroskey in Airplane II: The Sequel)

26. Media, Medium, or Mediums32

You know, maybe the Japanese didn't really know they were making a film per se. Maybe they thought there were working in a
different _____, like fabric sculpture or something.
(Crow T. Robot commenting on Invasion of the Neptune Men)

27. Naval or Navel33

At the checkout counter, Keelie's eyes immediately zeroed in on a tiny oak-leaf _____ ring in a display of silver body jewelry. It was
perfect for her, even though she didn't have a pierced _____.
(Gillian Summers, Into the Wildewood)

28. Nutritional or Nutritious34

"Bless this highly _____, microwavable macaroni-and-cheese dinner and the people who sold it on sale. Amen."
(Macaulay Culkin as Kevin McCallister in Home Alone)

29. Patience or Patients35

"How do you have _____ for people who claim they love America but clearly can't stand Americans?"
(Annette Bening as Sydney Ellen Wade in The American President)
30. Perpetrates or Perpetuates36
"This whole baby thing baffles me, I mean you have it, you raise it, you inevitably screw it up, it resents you, feels guilty for resenting
you and then it has a baby, which only _____ the vicious cycle."
(Demi Moore as Samantha Albertson in Now and Then)

31. Pray or Prey37

"[E]xperience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of
Europe, and to the general _____ of the rich on the poor."
(Thomas Jefferson)

32. Precedence or Precedents38

I dedicated my life to the preservation and the protection of the Federation. This duty, which I carried out to the best of my ability,
took _____ over everything else--my parents, my wife, my children.
(William Sadler as Sloan in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)

33. Prodigy or Protégé39

"Everybody hates a _____, detests an old head on young shoulders."
(Desiderius Erasmus)

34. Prophecy or Prophesy40

"[I]t is a much better policy to _____ after the event has already taken place."
(Winston Churchill)

35. Rack or Wrack41

What did it look like? Who cares what it looked like? It was just a _____ of computer equipment.
(Lena Headey as Sarah Connor in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles)

36. Raise, Raze, or Rise42

"I have a dream that one day this nation will _____ up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-
evident, that all men are created equal.'"
(Martin Luther King, Jr., "I Have a Dream"43)

37. Rapt or Wrapped44

"He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand _____ in awe is as good as dead; his eyes are closed."
(Albert Einstein)

38. Right, Rite, Wright, or Write45

"Everybody has a _____ to pronounce foreign names as he chooses."
(Winston Churchill)

39. Ring or Wring46

"Having failed to _____ a confession from you, they lock you in a cell, and leave you there all night."
(H.L. Mencken, "The Nature of Liberty"47)

40. Risky or Risqué48

"Dirty dancing" and the lambada were considered too _____ by many when they became popular. In the present day, many high
schools ban freaking, grinding, and other dances that simulate the sex act. Some schools have equipped chaperones with flashlights to
expose inappropriate movements.
(Mark Knowles, The Wicked Waltz and Other Scandalous Dances)

41. Scene or Seen49

"Very often a change of self is needed more than a change of _____."
(A.C. Benson)

42. Sole or Soul50

"In practice nobody cares whether work is useful or useless, productive or parasitic; the _____ thing demanded is that it shall be
profitable."
(George Orwell)

43. Straight or Strait51

"You can't trust water: even a _____ stick turns crooked in it."
(W.C. Fields)

44. Taught or Taut52

"Each of their faces was as clear to me as in the moment of actual vision--the man's fat shiny bewildered face; the _____ white face of
the woman, the hard red line of her mouth, the eyes that were not flashing, but positively dull, with rage."
(Max Beerbohm, "A Relic"53)

45. Threw, Through, or Thru54

Please, try to understand. I don't have the background for this. I mean, the high school I went to, they asked a kid to prove the law of
 gravity, he _____ the teacher out the window!
(Rodney Dangerfield as Thornton Melon in Back to School)

46. Throes or Throws55

"A place in the _____ of an energy boom isn't so different from a person in the _____ of addiction: there's the denial that things are
out of control; there's the sleeplessness and the moral carelessness, and the fact that you are doing something that you know isn't good
for you but you just can't stop."
(Alexandra Fuller)

47. Torpid or Torrid56

"[N]ovels so often provide an anodyne and not an antidote, glide one into _____ slumbers instead of rousing one with a burning
brand."
(Virginia Woolf)

48. Urban or Urbane57

"He wore eye-glasses of the pince-nez variety, and they dangled in a fashionable manner from a black silk cord: it was better than
going to a show to see him put them on, his manner was so _____, casual, and distinguished when he did so."
(Thomas Wolfe)

49. Wait or Weight58

"I finally told Ross, late in the summer, that I was losing _____, my grip, and possibly my mind."
(James Thurber)

50. Way or Weigh59

"I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one _____."
(Mark Twain)

51. afterward
52. angel
53. unanimous
54. arduous
55. assent
56. band
57. boulder
58. break, break
59. canvas
60. chafe
61. childish
62. deprecate
63. diagnosis
64. emigrate
65. evoke
66. extort
67. garner
68. grisly
69. herd
70. hoarse
71. whole
72. incidents
73. insight
74. manor
75. mettle
76. medium
77. navel, navel
78. nutritious
79. patience
80. perpetuates
81. prey
82. precedence
83. prodigy
84. prophesy
85. rack
86. rise
87. rapt
88. right
89. wring
90. risqué
91. scene
92. sole
93. straight
94. taut
95. threw
96. throes
97. torpid
98. urbane
99. weight
100. way