MID-T ERM EXAMINATION IN TECHNICAL ENGLISH
Confusing words are words that are very similar and commonly confused. Choose the correct word to complete
the question. Each question has only one correct answer. Underline your answer.
1. Affect or Effect
"Our ultimate freedom is the right and
power to decide how anybody or anything
outside ourselves will _____ us." (Stephen
R. Covey)
2. Allusion or Illusion
"The single biggest problem in
communication is the _____ that it has
taken place." (George Bernard Shaw)
3. Aural or Oral
While visual learners prefer to learn
information through charts and graphs,
_____ learners prefer to hear information.
4. Capital or Capitol
Bismarck is the _____ of North Dakota and
the state’s second largest city.
5. Cereal or Serial
"Here's what we do. We leave the car here,
we take the plates off, we scratch the _____
number off the engine block, and we walk
away." (Kramer in Seinfeld)
6. Chord or Cord
The governor touched a responsive _____
with voters of both parties, especially with
her promise to veto any budget plan that
included an increase in taxes.
7. Click or Clique
The vice president of China belongs to a
_____ known as the "princelings,"
descendants of prominent communist
officials.
8. Climactic or Climatic
The new music director favors full-bodied,
robust sound, which can build to daring
decibel levels in _____ moments.
9. Collaborate or Corroborate
The prosecutor closed the case, admitting
that he was unable to find witnesses to
_____ the allegations made against Mr.
Soprano.
10. Credible or Credulous
"The most imaginative people are the most
_____: for them everything is possible."
(Alexander Chase)
11. Dazed or Dazzled
_____ by months of gladhanding and
posturing, the candidates stumbled around
the stage like finalists in a dance marathon.
12. Defuse or Diffuse
"Gossip is a sort of smoke that comes from
the dirty tobacco-pipes of those who _____
it: it proves nothing but the bad taste of the
smoker." (George Eliot)
13. Eminent or Imminent
If so _____ an establishment as a three-star
Michelin restaurant can serve toxic
shellfish, what hope is there for anyone
else?
14. Fair or Fare
The driver teased the poor child who had
forgotten her bus _____.
15. Faze or Phase
I'm happy to say that the first _____ of our
operation has met with considerable
success.
16. Finally or Finely
"My sister's bringing up had made me
sensitive. In the little world in which
children have their existence, whosoever
brings them up, there is nothing so _____
perceived and so _____ felt as injustice."
(Charles Dickens, Great Expectations)
17. Flare or Flair
The bright spot in the sky was an unusually
large solar _____, a stupendous explosion
that belched radiation and billions of tons
of matter far into space.
18. Flaunt or Flout
The first priority of the commission should
be to identify restaurant owners who
knowingly _____ public-health laws.
19. Flew, Flu, or Flue
"The Wright brothers _____ right through
the smoke screen of impossibility." (Charles
F. Kettering)
20. Formally or Formerly
"Home computers are being called upon to
perform many new functions, including the
consumption of homework _____ eaten by
the dog." (Doug Larson)
21. Forth or Fourth
"A reformer is one who sets _____
cheerfully toward sure defeat." (Lydia M.
Child)
22. Gibe, Jibe, or Jive
"Do you promise to jump, _____, wail,
groove, rock steady, and at all times lend a
helping hand to your fellow music lovers?"
(The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning)
23. Hardy or Hearty
"_____ laughter is a good way to jog
internally without having to go outdoors."
(Norman Cousins)
24. Homed or Honed
Last year scientists re-engineered E coli
bacteria so that instead of swimming
toward food they _____ in on substances
released by dangerous pathogens.
25. Hurdling or Hurtling
"The ground beneath our feet is spinning at
a thousand miles an hour. The entire planet
is _____ around the sun at 67,000 miles an
hour. And I can feel it." (The Doctor in
Doctor Who)
26. Ingenious or Ingenuous
"Salvatore was now a great big husky
fellow, tall and broad, but still with that
_____ smile and those trusting, kindly eyes
that he had had as a boy." (William
Somerset Maugham, "Salvatore")
27. Leaches or Leeches
"You are feeding off the violence and the
despair of the drug trade. You are a parasite
who _____ off the culture of drugs." (Maury
Levy in The Wire)
28. Lead or Led
"We can chart our future clearly and wisely
only when we know the path which has
_____ to the present." (Adlai E. Stevenson)
29. Liable or Libel
"If you shoot me, you're _____ to lose a lot
of those humanitarian awards." (Chevy
Chase in Fletch)
30. Loose or Lose
"The best way to find yourself is to _____
yourself in the service of others."
(Mohandas Gandhi)
31. Miner or Minor
Parents are conditioned to put up with a
few _____ accidents when they leave their
children home alone--a broken vase, spilt
milk on the rug.
32. Official or Officious
Julia Child once grabbed a pepper mill from
the hands of an _____ waiter before he had
a chance to spoil her carefully ordered dish.
33. Palate, Palette, or Pallet
"Yes, gentlemen, I have here just about the
handiest, dandiest little bookful of
gastronomical surprises that ever tempted
the jaded _____ of a fastidious f-f-food
fancier." (Daffy Duck)
34. Peak, Peek, or Pique
"The man who unified China in the third
century B.C. conquered six other feudal
states to do it, built the first version of the
Great Wall and in a fit of _____ may have
buried hundreds of scholars alive." (Time
magazine, May 18, 2008)
35. Plain or Plane
"I remain just one thing, and one thing only,
and that is a clown. It places me on a far
higher _____ than any politician." (Charlie
Chaplin)
36. Pole or Poll
"A public-opinion _____ is no substitute for
thought."(Warren Buffett)
37. Prescribed or Proscribed
The Canadian government added the
Somali al-Shabaab group to its list of _____
terror groups.
38. Principal or Principle
"All animals, except man, know that the
_____ business of life is to enjoy it."
(Samuel Butler)
39. Prostate or Prostrate
"Miss Everglot, what are you doing here?
You should be at home, _____ with grief."
(Pastor Galswells in Corpse Bride)
40. Regretful or Regrettable
The movie is beautiful, luscious, and elegiac,
but it has the _____ drawback of being
dreadfully boring.
41. Reluctant or Reticent
The teacher tried to make conversation, but
the boy remained _____ and refused to
make eye contact.
42. Restive or Restless
"My _____, roaming spirit would not allow
me to remain at home very long." (Buffalo
Bill Cody)
43. Riffled or Rifled
With quiet precision, the thief _____ the
pouch, placed most of its contents in a
briefcase, and walked confidently out of the
embassy.
44. Role or Roll
"Change does not _____ in on the wheels of
inevitability, but comes through continuous
struggle." (Martin Luther King, Jr.)
45. Stanch or Staunch
"There's an evil on these seas that even the
most _____ and bloodthirsty pirates have
come to fear." (Tia Dalma in Pirates of the
Caribbean: At World's End)
46. Suit or Suite
"I'd walk through hell in a gasoline _____ to
play baseball." (Pete Rose)
47. Tack or Tact
"The Viper, to me, is the quintessential
American muscle car--brute power, great
looks and about as much _____ as a grunge
band crashing a cotillion." (Bill Griffith, The
Boston Globe)
48. Troop or Troupe
In the end, the plucky singing Scot lost out
to a dance _____.
49. Vale or Veil
"Our own self-love draws a thick _____
between us and our faults." (Lord
Chesterfield)
50. Who's or Whose
"Never go to a doctor _____ office plants have
died." (Erma Bombeck)
TRVIA:
What is the size of Imelda's shoes.?