Do you know these 5 high-intermediate vocabulary words?

a fiasco - a disaster, something that goes very badly

 

to demote or to be demoted - this is the opposite of to promote or to be promoted.  For instance, when I was younger, it was possible for students to be demoted to lower grades if they were not doing well in their particular classes.  If someone has a supervisory position but does not perform satisfactorily, he/she might be demoted.

 

a probe - an investigation.  To probe can mean to investigate.  A doctor will sometimes do a medical probe on a patient...a device with a little camera might be inserted into the patient, through the patient's mouth or whatnot, and this will allow the doctor to see inside the patient.

 

a shakeup - a sudden change to an organization due to poor performance.  Usually some people are demoted, some are promoted, some might be fired and some newly hired.  A CEO might say that he needs to shakeup his organization because people have become too corrupt or lazy.

 

to hoard - to collect some type of thing or differing things and store those things even though you do not need them or might not ever need them.  Animals, for instance, tend to hoard food in case the weather turns bad.

 

 

answers to the exercises are way at the bottom of this message

 

 

Because the huge amount of snow that fell during the recent blizzard was not plowed from the streets promptly, the newspapers demanded a __________________ at the Department of Sanitation.  Several high-ranking officials were later fired. 

{{{to plow - to push the snow, using a type of vehicle with a huge shovel on the front of it, toward the side of the road.  promptly - in a timely manner.  If you are a prompt person, you are generally on time.  The Department of Sanitation is basically the department that has to pick up garbage and plow snow.}}}

 

It was discovered that when the city government began its program of distributing free food in poor neighborhoods, some residents would take food they really didn't need and _______________ it, while others who truly needed the food could not gain access to it once the city ran out of supplies.

 

Once it was learned that a Governor of New Jersey was giving high-ranking government positions to handsome men who were not qualified for the positions, a newspaper launched (initiated or started) a _________________.  They then discovered that the Governor was secretly gay and was giving out important jobs to his lovers.

 

When David Patterson became Governor of New York State, after Governor Spitzer was caught secretly visiting prostitutes (women who sell their bodies for sex), many people had high hopes for him.  However, his term as Governor was a complete and total _________________.  The government became more corrupt and ineffective and taxes and MTA fares rose greatly.

 

Because Bob had been such an excellent journalist, he was promoted to the position of editor.  However, the skills required for being an editor were different from the skills required for being a journalist and he was shortly ________________ back to journalist, where he was quite happy again.

 

 

 

shakeup

hoard

probe

fiasco

demoted