Golf Juliet Bravo, whilst I totally and utterly agree with your opinion on the state of the JAA/EASA question bank, I'm afraid you made a bit of an arse of your Q12.
Q12: Lift is generated when?
(a) A mass of air is accelerated downward.
This is the most correct answer. This answer is ALWAYS true.
Despite what anyone has ever said to you, lift is purely a reaction to the deflection of air downwards. How an aerofoil does this is pretty complicated and many pilots get this all wrong. Not your fault, you were probably told a load of rubbish by your instructor.
Firstly, the difference in pressure between the upper and lower surfaces is a RESULT of the generated lift and does NOT produce it. Infact, this is the cause of your induced drag via wing tip vorticies. If you could somehow deflect the air downwards without getting any difference in pressure then you would have a damn near perfect aerofoil.
Airflow that runs along the bottom of the aerofoil is deflected down in a pretty simple fashion.
However, the upper surface is where pilots get it all wrong. The viscosity of air means that, for low angles of attack, it sticks to the surface with high inertia and low internal drag. This boundary layer is faster than the free stream air because it is laminar (flows in low drag layers a cm or so thick). It needs to be fast to stick, and it needs to stick so that it can leave the trailing edge in a downwards direction.
The fact that the increase in velocity gives an increase in dynamic pressure and thus a decrease in static pressure is purely consequential.
There is much more to it thant that but you get the general idea.
(b) The shape of the aerofoil is slightly cambered.
This is NOT always true. You will not produce lift with a negative or too high AOA (stall).
Interestingly, you do NOT need camber to produce lift. You can have a symmetrical aerofoil produce lift as long as it has a positive angle of attack and enough airflow. In fact if you take a sheet of glass, give it a positive AOA and enough airflow, it too will produce lift (just with a low L/D ratio). Certainly not cambered though!
To take it further, the C152 aerobat has a cambered wing but can fly upside down no problemo. You can even produce lift with negative camber! All you have to do is push enough air downwards for the least drag penalty.
(c) An aerofoil is placed in a high velocity airstream
Again, you can have a negative AOA, or stall (too high AOA) and not produce lift regardless of IAS. Not ALWAYS true.
(d) A mass of air is retarded.
Standard ridiculous answer.
You can usually get round these Qs by asking 'which is always correct?', 'which is most correct?' or 'which is least wrong?'.
But the courses and the questions are utterly insane and not fit for purpose.
EK