The Wall Street Journal Weekly Quiz s13

The Wall Street Journal Education Program

Weekly Review & Quiz

Covering front-page articles from Jan 13-19, 2007

Quiz Spring 2007 Issue #2

Developed by: Scott R. Homan Ph.D., Purdue University

1. AF's editors know that many language guardians (though not all dictionaries) say acronyms must _____.

a. be short

b. be five letters or more

c. be pronounceable

d. begin with a consonant

2. Mr. Molloy and his wife, Susan Ebert often get complaints from ___.

a. students

b. lawmakers

c. teachers

d. lawyers

3. According to Visa USA a typical supermarket pays _____ cents in fees when a customer buys $40 of groceries with a debit card and a PIN. The fee is 35 cents for a signature-debit transaction and can be more than 50 cents when a customer uses a plain-vanilla credit card.

a. 14

b. 24

c. 34

d. 44

4. In the three months ended Sept 30, nearly ______of Visa's 6.2 billion transactions came from debit cards.

a. 33 percent

b. 44 percent

c. 55 percent

d. 66 percent

5. Comcast the country's largest cable operator by number of subscribers, says offering services geared to ______will be its top new priority of 2007 and 2008.

a. college students

b. small and midsize businesses

c. large businesses

d. rural businesses

6. Cable operators are hopeful they can carve out as much as a ____ market share partly by convincing business owners who take broadband service at home that it will work just as well, and for less money, at their offices.

a. 10%

b. 20%

c. 30%

d. 40%

7. The new Democratic led Congress is trying to put its mark on ______.

a. interest rates

b. phone rates

c. anti-child labor

d. climate change

8. The flagship among the cap and trade bills unveiled last week by Republican Sen John McCain of Arizona and Democratic Sens Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Barack Obama of Illinois. The legislation would require industries to reduce their _____ to 2004 levels by 2012.

a. emissions

b. taxes

c. use of gasoline

d. use of natural gas

9. FARC the largest leftist guerrilla group is active in ______.

a. Mexico

b. Brazil

c. Peru

d. Colombia

10. Pacifist Páez Indians, once halted a firefight between guerrillas and rural police by walking into the no man's land carrying only _____.

a. newspapers

b. peace signs

c. white flags

d. ceremonial palm staffs

11. A new version of Microsoft Windows, the world's most popular and important computer operating system, will finally arrive for consumers on _____.

a. January 20

b. January 30

c. February 30

d. March 20

12. Earlier this month, disk-drive maker Hitachi announced that it would soon be shipping a ______.

a. gigabyte-capacity disk drive

b. terabyte-capacity disk drive

c. petabyte-capacity disk drive

d. petabyte-capacity flash drive

13. Phones equipped with ____ are becoming more prevalent, partly in response to federal rules that require carriers to make it easier for emergency officials to locate cell phone users.

a. microwave reader chips

b. cameras

c. GPS

d. TiVo

14. As volunteers began meditating, the kind of brain wave that grew exceptionally strong were ______.

a. alpha waves

b. beta waves

c. delta waves

d. gamma waves

15. This week the price of crude oil is _____ its level of $77 in July.

a. 12% above

b. 12% below

c. 32% above

d. 32% below

16. Wall Street analysts are confident that tech stocks will _____.

a. be among the market's weakest performers this year

b. be among the market's strongest performers this year

c. be among the market's strongest performers this year in the US only

d. be among the market's strongest performers this year in Asia only

17. Securities rules prohibit trading on ______.

a. material nonpublic information

b. public information material

c. information learned on MSNBC

d. information learned via foreign media sources

18. A mortgage letting older homeowners tap into their home's value without selling the house or having to make home equity loan payments is called a ______.

a. Indexed Annuity

b. Life Settlement

c. Reverse Mortgage

d. Variable Annuity

19. Roughly _____ of GE's net income comes from its financial-services business, GE Capital.

a. 10%

b. 20%

c. 50%

d. 60%

20. Retailer TJX which owns big discount clothing chains like TJ Maxx and Marshalls, said it has been hit by a wide-reaching security breach that may leave its customers around the world exposed to fraud and identity theft from transactions that date back to ____.

a. 1999

b. 2001

c. 2003

d. 2005

21. Young, healthy employees might find ______on their own that is cheaper than in the workplace.

a. dental insurance

b. whole life insurance

c. short term disability insurance

d. term life insurance

22. Wealthy people are taking classes _____.

a. in order to cement relationships with clients and their heirs

b. because they are bored with shopping and hosting charity events

c. to better educate themselves on how to manage their wealth

d. to learn secret ways to get richer quicker