Test Your Industry Smarts: Move Over, Imus

By Matthew Power.

2002 Walk-Through

How well did you follow trends and turnarounds in 2002? See if you rank among the best of the industry's talking heads.

1. Q: Mold was this year's panic button for the industry. If you did your homework, you should know all there is to know about mold. Which specific type of mold (scientific name) is the one that can get you in big legal trouble?

a.Placentus necrosis

b.Green bile

c.Black camphry bacterium

d.Stachybotrys chartarum

2. Q: A new movie did wonders for the sellers of bulletproof panels and fed into the fears of affluent suburbanites. Roll the cement trucks. Order more rebar. Every paranoid buyer will want an intruder-proof room now. The movie was (aptly) called:

a."Safe!"

b."The Last Castle"

c."Panic Room"

d."Under Siege"

3. Q: A huge tornado swept through La Plata, Md., this year, flattening many homes. Based on a postmortem of structures, which of the following is most accurate.

a.Older stick-framed homes fared better than new stick-framed homes.

b.Brick homes fared better than older stick- framed homes.

c. New building codes seemed to have had little impact.

d. When a tornado strikes, no building technique is superior.

4. Q: Homeowner insurance premiums increased dramatically in 2002. The real reason, according to experts:

a. Home values are much higher than they were last year.

b. Sept. 11 cost the insurers billions that they mustmake up.

c. Insurers invested too heavily in Wall Street.

d. Homeowners make increasingly frivolous claims.

5. Q: Who was quoted recently saying: "There aren't many of us left. As someone said to me the other day, you're a dinosaur."

a. Comedian Jay Leno (privately, to a group of builders)

b. John Wieland, CEO of John Wieland Homes

c. Vice President Dick Cheney, at the NAHB fall board meeting

d. Former NAHB President Charlie Ruma

Key: 1) d; 2) c; 3) b; 4) c; 5) b