Part One: Fill in the blank. Write 1-10 on your paper. There
are twelve words and eleven blanks.
consecration, zealous, extricate, fervent, Gambol, evince, virile,
eschew, coquettish, admonition, petulance,
Skeptic
Helmholtz watched the soccer game with a mixture of disgust
and amusement. His disgust was directed toward the 1_________ boys who ran in circles
and 2________ed about the field similar to monkeys, running over one another,
with 3________ cries encouraging one another to continue to run hard and
meaninglessly. The 4____________ girls who sat by him on the bench cried their
names, blinking their eyes, and flouncing their various body parts. Normally,
Helmholtz 5________ed such athletic contests, and the 6__________ fans who
screamed their encouragements form the sideline.
Then Central scored, and three excited moms, seated about
him, hugged one another, pinning him in the middle. He 7____________d himself. “Don’t hug me,” he said, displeased to hear a
note of 8___________ in his voice. As if he didn’t feel immature enough already
at this event.
The reason why he was there, he knew, was that Alize was
there. Though she had 9_________d not the slightest concern for him since the
break-up, not re-tweeting one of his tweets, he still held out hope. As Romeo
had said of Juliet’s lips, “It is a 10________________ devoutly to be wished .
. .” Yet deep in him a voice spoke in 11_______________. It told him that he
had to stop his stalkerish moping.
Part II: Fill in the blank. Write 11-20 on your paper. There
are eleven words and ten blanks.
ascetic, corpulent, arid, debauchery, despotic, epicure, Emulous,
stringent, vicinage, deviate, indelibly,
Helmholtz stalked off, leaving the 1___________ of his
ex-girl-friend, daring to walk across three feet of the corner of the field. No
one noticed his protest. He then planned a night of 2___________, involving
many bottles of ginger bee, licorice sticks, and episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He deserved to
live like an 3___________ he thought, after the 4___________ life style he had
practiced pursuing Alize, similar to a Buddhist monk pursuing Nirvana. He had
forced himself to follow 5_____________ rules about diet. He had grown thin
under her 6_____________ insistence on vegetables. He had once been 7_______________,
but after dating her he was rail thin. He had followed her rules even after she
left, 8_____________ of her thin figure, fashionably detailed. He was still hoping
in some strange benighted corner of his brain to impress her.
In his room, he promised himself that he would no longer 9__________
from his prescribed day. He would go the library at lunch, and read Jane Austen
novels, and at three oh four he would walk out of school. He would wear black
and keep his hair short and if anybody didn’t like it he wouldn’t know. Yet, he
knew that the memory of jokes told on a porch in the September breeze was 10___________
inscribed in him, and that he would need to replace that. Alone had become lonely.
