Vocabulary Grade 12 — Set 3: Practice flashcards
6 of 34 questions free to study here · 9 topics · the whole deck is built into Willys
Thirty-four sentence-completion questions on the Set 3 words: four choices, one blank, and a note on why the most tempting wrong answer fails.
Practice deck · part of Vocabulary Level 7 · Grade 12 · written against: Our own grade placement (VOCABULARY-PLAN.md): word frequency (wordfreq, CC BY-SA 4.0) and editorial review; no publisher's grade or word list is reproduced. Updated 2026-10-10.
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In forty years of guiding tours through the old granite quarry, Mr. Haldane never once lost his patience or his temper, yet no visitor ever saw him smile: ______ and solemn, he seemed carved from the same gray stone.
A) testy
B) debonair
C) dour
D) crestfallenC) dourCharacter & Behavior
A stern, gloomy manner that never breaks into a smile is dour. Testy is tempting because it also describes a sour manner, but testy means easily annoyed and impatient, and Mr. Haldane never loses his patience or his temper; crestfallen is sadness after a setback, not a manner kept for forty years. -
Started by a dozen riders meeting in a garage, the bike-to-work movement has grown citywide, and for three decades its ______, none of them famous, have pedaled through rain, snow and heat while urging the city to build safer bike paths.
A) neophytes
B) pundits
C) adherents
D) luminariesC) adherentsThinking & Knowing
Loyal followers who have stuck with a movement for decades are its adherents. Neophytes is tempting because the movement began small, but neophytes are beginners, and a movement that has kept riders pedaling for three decades is not made up of beginners; pundits give opinions in the media, and luminaries are famous, admired figures, which none of these riders is. -
When the restored railroad depot reopened as a museum, the town historian gave a stately twenty-minute ______ from a flag-draped stage, tracing the depot's story from the day the first train arrived.
A) tirade
B) oration
C) segue
D) tractB) orationSpeaking & Arguing
A grand, serious speech given to mark an event like this reopening is an oration. Tirade is tempting because a tirade also runs long, but it is a stream of angry words, usually aimed at tearing someone or something down, while this speech is stately and simply traces the depot's story; a segue is a seamless shift to a new topic, and a tract is a pamphlet. -
A month after the traveling circus left town, the fairground still bore a single ______ of its visit: a long, deep rut that its heaviest truck had cut into the field by the gate.
A) vestige
B) anachronism
C) modicum
D) gradationA) vestigeChange & Growth
A trace left behind by something now gone is a vestige. Modicum is tempting because one rut is all that remains, yet a modicum is a limited but real amount, usually of something welcome or worthwhile, not a mark left behind by something gone; an anachronism belongs to the wrong time, and a gradation is one step in a series. -
Weighed down by a copper helmet and lead-soled boots, the old-time diver could cross the harbor floor only in ______ steps, each one slow and clumsy, though he placed every foot with great care.
A) monolithic
B) ponderous
C) slipshod
D) heedlessB) ponderousSize & Amount
Lumbering steps, dragged down by a huge load, are ponderous. Slipshod is tempting because the steps are clumsy, but slipshod means careless, and the diver places every foot with great care; heedless means careless or blind to danger, which that same care rules out, and monolithic describes something large and uniform, like a single stone, not a way of walking. -
Eruptions on the seafloor sometimes ______ whole new islands: Surtsey, which rose from the sea off southern Iceland in 1963, has let scientists watch seeds, birds and insects arrive on bare rock ever since.
A) supplant
B) beget
C) decimate
D) abetB) begetNature & Time
Eruptions that produce new islands, as the one that raised Surtsey did, beget them. Supplant is tempting because a new island takes the place of open water, but to supplant is to push something out and fill its spot, and an eruption makes an island rather than replacing one; decimate and abet would mean destroying islands or helping them do wrong.
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Review status: Second-reader reviewed, with corrections applied.
Checked against:
- Senses, parts of speech and sense order checked against Merriam-Webster.com, the American Heritage Dictionary and the frequency-ordered Oxford, Longman and Cambridge learner's dictionaries; all definitions, notes and example sentences are original.
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