The Wall Street Journal Weekly Quiz s27

The Wall Street Journal Education Program

Weekly Review & Quiz

Covering front-page articles from September 24 – 30, 2005

Quiz Fall 2005 Issue #6

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

1. The “cushion” needed to protect consumers from sudden price increases for gasoline is approximately:

a. 10% or about 8.5 million barrels

b. 25% or about 30 million barrels

c. 4% or 3.5 million barrels

d. 1% or 500,000 barrels

2. Globally investments in oil projects are ______.

a. increasing

b. decreasing

c. staying the same

d. stalled

3. For decades the auto industry has equated weight of a vehicle with which quality?

a. height

b. safety

c. wheel size

d. speed

4. A paper looking at car-crash fatality rates from 1966 to 2002, found ______between fuel economy and increased traffic fatalities. M

a. a small statistically significant relationship

b. a large statistically significant relationship

c. a medium statistically significant relationship

d. no statistically significant relationship

5. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, drawing on new research he has personally supervised, said American consumers have become enormously dependent on borrowing against their ______to fuel their spending.

a. homes

b. cars

c. boats

d. credit cards

6. Mr. Greenspan's new data show that borrowing against home values added a stunning ______to consumers' spending power last year.

a. $600 billion

b. $600 million

c. $6000

d. $600

7. High-speed Internet access, or broadband, has attained critical mass, reaching ______households this year, says eMarketer Inc.

a. 42 thousand U.S. households

b. 42 Billion U.S. households

c. 420,000 U.S. households

d. 42 million U.S. households

8. Viacom's Mr. Kramer says the traditional media companies are waking up to the fact that Internet advertising is ______.

a. expensive

b. over

c. not working

d. real

9. Ford Motor Co. plans to offer ______contracts to a smaller group of suppliers on future models, a switch that could save billions of dollars a year.

a. smaller, short-term

b. smaller, long-term

c. larger, long-term

d. larger, short-term

10. Ultimately, Ford aims to shrink from about 2,500 suppliers world-wide to ___.

a. less than 2,000

b. less than 200

c. less than 1,000

d. less than 100

11. Traditional colleges receive stamps of approval from ______, whose charters typically date to the 19th century.

a. eight national accrediting commissions

b. eight global accrediting commissions

c. eight regional accrediting commissions

d. two European accrediting commissions

12. While 3,000 traditional colleges have standard accreditation, only about ______for-profit colleges do.

a. 9

b. 90

c. 900

d. 1

13. “Dashboard” computer software is useful for

a. making sure long –term goals are changed with every slight change in bottom line numbers

b. quickly and easily accessing a large amount of “real time” data

c. making sure employees don’t take too many restroom breaks

d. making managers too paranoid to get any real work done

14. Many of the fastest growing unions in the U.S. represent ______.

a. undocumented workers

b. college students

c. factory workers

d. white-collar professionals

15. India is now handling outsourcing in what profession?

a. Cosmetology

b. Legal Services

c. Obstetrics

d. Personal Trainers

16. An SC-tracker is designed to help reduce ______.

a. shipping time

b. cargo theft

c. animal injury

d. traffic accidents

17. To ensure that they get their share of internet sales taxes, ______states have banded together to simplify their myriad tax rules, regulations and quirks.

a. 28 states

b. 18 states

c. 10 states

d. 8 states

18. Wall Street brokers are in a different line of work these days. Their firms are pushing them to be ______managers.

a. wealth

b. real estate

c. cash

d. Human Resource

19. This year's devastating hurricane season has breathed new life into a push by some in the insurance industry to enlist ____ for insuring against natural disasters.

a. government help

b. red cross help

c. church help

d. volunteer help

20. Expensive energy is having a greater effect on ______.

a. rich consumers

b. middle income consumers

c. poorer consumers

d. Northern consumers

21. AmEx shareholders are to receive ______Ameriprise share for every five American Express shares they hold, and the shares will begin trading Monday on the New York Stock Exchange, using the stock symbol AMP.

a. 1

b. 3

c. 5

d. 10

22. This month, ______of the companies represented in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index have said their results will come in below expectations.

a. 2

b. 22

c. 200

d. 220

23. GM showed a ______in its North American operations for the first six months.

a. $2.5 billion loss

b. $2.5 billion profit

c. $25 billion loss

d. $25 billion profit

24. World-wide sales of music CDs have ______in the past six years.

a. fallen 13%

b. risen 13%

c. fallen 53%

d. risen 53%

25. A recent survey concerning the National Do Not Call Registry found:

a. the program is a complete success

b. the program is not working at all

c. 51% of participants are still receiving calls that should be blocked

d. the telephone survey could not be conducted because the calls were blocked

26. When Jeanne Robinson brought her 1999 Volkswagen Passat to a local repair shop last month she was told to ______.

a. take the car to the dealer

b. wait for an immediate repair

c. get an oil change first

d. go to the auto parts store first