that multiple-choice trick

How many of the following questions would you get right if you simply followed the trick of picking the physically longest (or, possibly, the physically shortest) answer? Correct answers appear below, between the brackets. Highlight to see.

QUESTION 1 OF 7

What does POV mean?

a. an indication on an invitation that the favor of a reply is requested.
b. the position of the narrator in relation to the story, as indicated by the narrator's outlook from which the events are depicted and by the attitude toward the characters.
c. a system used in the U.S. to facilitate the delivery of mail, consisting of a five- or nine-digit code printed directly after the address.

QUESTION 2 OF 7
What does HALLUCINATE mean?

a. to show clearly; make evident.
b. to reason; carry on a process of reasoning.
c. to produce false information contrary to the intent of the user and present it as if true and factual.

QUESTION 3 OF 7
What does PERNICIOUS mean?

a. deadly; destructive; exceedingly harmful.
b. speaking or expressing oneself in a lofty style.
c. large; powerful; impressive.

QUESTION 4 OF 7
What does SALUBRIOUS mean?

a. favorable to or promoting health; healthful.
b. globe-shaped; spherical.
c. strange; uncommon.

QUESTION 5 OF 7
What does KENSPECKLE mean?

a. distinct in kind; essentially different; dissimilar.
b. excessively talkative in a rambling, roundabout manner.

c. conspicuous; easily seen or recognized.

QUESTION 6 OF 7
What does EN MASSE mean?

a. not at all.
b. apart from others; separately.
c. all together; as a whole.

QUESTION 7 OF 7
What does BOILERPLATE mean?

a. a stronghold.
b. the detailed standard wording of a contract or warranty.
c. a bristling of the hair on the skin.

[USING THE TRICK: if you used the trick to select the physically longest answer every time, you'd have gotten 1, 2, 4, and 7 correct. For 5, the correct answer is the physically shortest one. So in all, you could've gotten 5 out of 7 correct just by following a strategy that has nothing to do with the content or meaning of the answers at all. This is why I hate multiple choice, and why I mentioned this very problem in my book.

GOING OLD-SCHOOL AND NOT USING THE TRICK:

1. b; 2. c; 3. a; 4. a; 5. c; 6. c; 7. b

HINTS AND CLUES:

1. POV is an abbreviation for "point of view." It's often used in theater, film, drawing, and painting.

2. To hallucinate is to see (or hear/taste/smell/feel) things. It's not so much a misperception as the generation of a false perception, or more precisely, the mental conjuring of something that doesn't exist. Frankly, I don't understand why the definition is written the way it is in the question. It seems wordy even by my standards.

3. When I hear an -icious suffix, my mind always associates that with a negative like vicious. I don't know why. After all, delicious is also an -icious word, but positive. Anyway, if I didn't know what pernicious meant, my guess would be that it was something negative, maybe something vicious, so (a) would be the best fit. That's a lame strategy, I know. I make no excuses for being just a man.

4. With salubrious, your mind might jump to salutary (healthy/wholesome), which is a positive. If you know French, you know that le salut, along with meaning a greeting like "hello" (a salutation), also means "salvation" in a religious context. In Spanish el salud is health, and a saludo is a greeting.

5. I had to look up the etymology of kenspeckle when it first appeared as a Word of the Day on Dictionary.com. The ken is related to knowledge ("beyond my ken," or the Scots "I dinna ken"), and the speckle is from an old Scandinavian word, spakr, meaning "wise." Together as kenspeckle, the roots mean "something conspicuous or easily recognizable."

6. Even if you don't know French, you can take a wild guess that en masse means "in a mass," which makes (c) the only plausible answer.

7. I'm not happy with the quiz question's way of defining boilerplate, which can be a noun or an adjective. Something boilerplate is ordinary or standard, following a conventional template. In movie talk, a boilerplate story is a standard, ho-hum, conventional plot that is predictable, offering no surprises and following patterns that have come before.

I got a 7 out of 7, but that's because I follow the Word of the Day pretty religiously, so I'd already learned or relearned the meanings of all the words on the quiz.]