Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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INSTRUCTIONS
Please read these instructions before beginning.
The six-page test has a one-hour time limit. It consists of five parts for a total of 100 points: Part 1, current events; Part 2, grammar; Part 3,
digital knowledge and Part 4, editing and headline writing. Answers must be written on the test. Test-takers are permitted to have only blank
paper, pens and pencils. Traditional headlines should be written in the spaces provided in Part 5 and each line, including spaces, should not
exceed the total count. Each letter or space counts as one unit. For example, this headline would have the following count: Editing Test
Called Easy (24 units). SEO headlines and tweets should be written on the lines indicated.
Do not begin the test until you have been instructed to do so by the monitor.
Participants and monitors for this national competition should not divulge the contents of this exercise. No parts of this exercise
can be reproduced without written permission of the Dow Jones News Fund.
Copyright 2016 Dow Jones News Fund, Inc.
PART 1 Current Events 10 pts.
1. Devastating floods in ____BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA_______ killed 13 and damaged more than 60,000 homes.
2. U.S. Supreme Court Justice ____ANTONIN SCALIA______, who died in February, has yet to be replaced.
3. Gymnast ____SIMONE BILES won four gold medals and one bronze at the 2016 summer Olympics.
5. Results of Brexit mean the United Kingdom decided to ____LEAVE THE EUROPEAN UNION__________.
7. An international network of journalists documented corruption on a global scale in reporting based on the leaked
_________PANAMA PAPERS___________________.
8. More than 130 people were killed in simultaneous ISIL attacks launched last November in __PARIS/FRANCE___.
9. More than 8,000 people were rounded up after a failed coup detat this summer in ___TURKEY____________.
10. The U.S. denied, then admitted it released $1.3 billion to __IRAN_____ connected to freeing American prisoners.
Part 2 Grammar and Usage: Underline the correct choice in each example. 1 pt. /Total=10 pts.
1. The bidding war among / BETWEEN two rival media companies turned bitter.
2. The salesmen claimed that his product was superior to the conference hosts showed a lack of tack / TACT.
3. If she WERE / was CEO, the firm would be solvent instead of on the verge of bankruptcy.
5. Since the attorney general was convicted the call for impeachment was SUPERFLUOUS / supercilious.
6. Possessing 15 pounds of marijuana were / WAS grounds for arrest before the new law took effect.
7. The spectators were rushed OFF / off of the bleachers before they collapsed.
8. The attorney generals / ATTORNEYS GENERAL of 13 states sued to block federal regulations about
10. Rebekah was the OLDEST / older of the couples four children.
PART 3 News Terms. Complete the crossword puzzle. 2 pts. for #1. Down; all other answers 1 pt./Total = 10
1H E R A L 2D
ACROSS DOWN
Y E 1. ______markup language
1. Old newspaper name
P 3T C 2. Subhead
4. Stand for news
3. Cuts a story
E 4R A C K 5. Hedshots
6E P S 7S
X E
T 8L O G O
2
4
4
1
3
PART 4 Name the state and place the number for each question on the map. 2 pts. each/Total =10
1. A sniper killed five police officers after a peaceful Black Lives Matter demonstration ____TEXAS____________.
3. The Centers for Disease Control warned of Zika virus cases in neighborhoods here ____FLORIDA____________.
4. The Republican and Democrat nominated for vice president come from __VIRGINIA___ and ____INDIANA_____.
PEOPLE Write the full name for each headshot, a list of their titles appears below in random order. 2 pts.
each/Total = 10
__ _
TIM KAINE___ LORETTA LYNCH MIKE PENCE LAURIE ___ JANET YELLEN
_______________ ________________ ________________ __HERNANDEZ _ ________________
THEIR TITLES
Chair, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve
Republican vice presidential candidate
Olympic gold medalist
Democratic vice presidential candidate
U.S. Attorney General
PART 5 Editing and Headline Writing: Edit the following story and explain your edits in the margin. Write a
one-line headline with a maximum count of 25, a Search Engine Optimization headline and a tweet on the lines below.
PRINT HEADLINE 10 pts.
FIRMS RESTORE HEALTH CARE
SEO HEADLINE 5 pts.
SMALL FIRMS RESTORE HEALTH PLANS
TWEET 2 pts.
a. DESPITE RISING PREMIUMS SMALL BUSINESSES RETHINK OFFERING HEALTH CARE
COVERAGE TO COMPETE FOR JOB CANDIDATES (Allowing for hashtag or url to story)
b. SMALL EMPLOYERS RECONSIDER GROUP HEALTH INSURANCE TO ATTRACT SKILLED
WORKERS IN A COMPETITIVE LABOR MARKET (Allowing for hashtag or url to story)
Some small companies that dropped group health insurance for their employees are reversing course,
driven by a tightening labor market and rising costs and fewer choices for individual coverage.
2 pts. each=Total 8
Laura COTTRELL, owner of a seven-person home-furnishings and home-improvement products
business in St. Louis, dropped group coverage in 2014, not only because of the cost but also the
CHECK CORRECT
SPELLING OF complexities of picking the right plan within a short deadline. Instead, she gave her employees a raise to
COTTRELL/COTTRALL
use to buy their own health plans.
Now she is looking at adding health benefits to make a cabinetry business she launched this year more
attractive to potential employees. If she makes the change, she says she would offer coverage to
employees of both of her businesses.
People are looking for health care, said Ms. COTTRALL, who said she was recently turned down by a
Estimates of how many small businesses offer group coverage vary. Fifty-four percent of companies with
THREE TO 60 WORKERS offered health benefits last year, about the same as in 2014 but down from
CUTOFF IS 49
66% in 2000, according to a 2015 Kaiser Family Foundation survey.
WORKERS: WAS
SURVEY FOR FIRMS
Conflicting forces are buffeting small companies. In N.C., some companies could face cost increases of as
WITH UP TO 60? IS THIS
A TYPO OR REPORTER much as 40% for ACA-compliant plans, said Michael Matznick, a Greensboro, insurance broker.
ERROR?
At the same time, prices for individual coverage are climbing and insurance companies are dropping out
11 of the state and federal marketplaces that sell individual coverage. Last week, Aetna Inc. said it would
withdraw from ELEVEN of the 15 state exchanges on which it currently offers coverage.
SEO HEADLINE 5
pts.
MOBILE BANK JOB: HACKERS HIT PHONES or HACKERS ROB BANKS BY CELLPHONE
TWEET 2 pts.
a. ROBBERS FIND THE WEAK SPOT IN MOBILE BANKING HACK USERS PHONES FOR ACCOUNT PASSWORDS
AND ID USING TEXT MESSAGES AND ADS. (Leave characters for hashtag, link to story)
b. BANK ROBBERS TURN TO POPULAR MALICIOUS SOFTWARE TO BREAK INTO BANK ACCOUNTS VIA
CELLPHONE AS CARELESS CUSTOMERS LEAVE DEVICES VULNERABLE. (No characters for hashtag, link to
story)
2 pts. each=Total 8
Cyberthieves have a new way to hack into consumer bank accounts: mobile phones.
Malicious software programs with names like Acecard and GM Bot are gaining popularity around the
CHECK world as criminals look for new and lucrative ways to attack the financial-services industry. Cyberthieves
MALWARE, are using such so-called malware to steal banking credentials from unsuspecting consumers when they log
AceCard vs. Acecard onto their bank accounts via their mobile phones, according to law-enforcement officials and
cybersecurity specialists.
The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council, which brings together five banking regulatory
bodies, in April updated its guidance for banks to include potential threats facing mobile financial
services, including mobile-phone malware.
Ian Holmes, banking fraud solutions manager for security firm SAS, estimates that the AceCard malware
has customized overlays to imitate 50 financial-services apps. The malware is gaining credibility in the
SUBJECT VERB
criminal underworld, said Mr. Holmes.
AGREEMENT:
GETS
The malware typically GET onto a phone when a user clicks on a text message from an unknown source
or taps an advertisement on a website. Once installed, it often lays dormant until the user opens a banking
app. The malware then creates a customized overlay on the authentic banking app. This allows criminals
to follow a users movements on the phone and eventually grab credentials to the account.
This type of mobile-phone malware is gaining ground as more consumers are using banking apps and
financial firms are rolling out a wider array of mobile services. The most common mobile-banking activity
WORD MISSING:
is checking an account balance.
in THE previous
Be consistent, The Federal Reserve said earlier this year that 53 PERCENT of smartphone users with bank accounts had
symbol or word. AP used mobile banking in previous 12 months, up from 43% in 2011.
style is to spell out
percent. Mobile phones are considered uniquely vulnerable to hackers because consumers typically dont install
anti-malware protection onto their devices.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
FINAL INSTRUCTIONS: When you have finished or when time runs out, return this exercise to your monitor. The monitors signature
will certify that the exercise was completed within the 60-minute period. The monitor must mail your completed exercise postmarked by
Nov. 1, 2016, to the Dow Jones News Fund, P.O. Box 300, Princeton, NJ 08543-0300.
________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________
Signature of Monitor Date