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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Richard Owen coined the term paleontology as the study of prehistoric life forms and called the giant animals dinosaurian, meaning:
(a) Ancient animal.
(b) Enormous creature.
(c) Terrible lizard.
(d) Large reptile.

2. The strongest earthquake ever recorded was measured off the coast of Chile in 1960. What did it measure on the Richter scale?
(a) 8.9.
(b) 10.2.
(c) 9.5.
(d) 7.8.

3. Tired of climbing hills to study clouds, C. T. R. Wilson invented what?
(a) Indoor cloud chamber.
(b) Cloud simulation computer program.
(c) Cloud telescope.
(d) Balloon-propelled cloud camera.

4. About how many stars can be seen from Earth using a two-inch telescope?
(a) 30,000.
(b) 300,000.
(c) 3 million.
(d) 3,000.

5. The Geiger counter is a:
(a) Radioactivity detector.
(b) Voltage meter.
(c) Molecular microscope.
(d) Magnetic imager.

6. After noticing an unusual phenomenon with uranium salts and a photographic plate, Henri Becquerel asked one of his graduate students to investigate the matter. Who was this student?
(a) Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen.
(b) René Just Haüy.
(c) Louise Désirée Lorieux.
(d) Marie Curie.

7. Halley believed that once scientists figured out the distance from the sun to the Earth, they could then calculate what?
(a) Distances to distant stars.
(b) Weight of the sun.
(c) Distances to other planets.
(d) Weight of Earth.

8. Which of the following is NOT a quark "flavor?"
(a) Strange.
(b) Charm.
(c) Inverted.
(d) Down.

9. Arranged side by side, how many atoms can fit across the width of a typical human hair?
(a) Half a trillion.
(b) Half a million.
(c) Five thousand.
(d) Five hundred.

10. What are so small that the dot on the letter "i" could hold 5 billion of them?
(a) Bacteria.
(b) Quarks.
(c) Viruses.
(d) Protons.

11. Our universe is at least how many light-years wide?
(a) 50 million trillions.
(b) 350 trillion.
(c) 5 trillion.
(d) 100 billion.

12. While the Compte de Buffon was spouting his theories of the new world, what was Frenchman Georges Cuvier doing?
(a) Writing the first ever description of the enormous mastodon, a new world discovery.
(b) Studying the archeology of the Incas, Mayans, and Aztecs.
(c) Cataloging edible plant species found in the New World.
(d) Living among indigenous people of the New World and writing down their languages.

13. In 1875, why was Max Planck advised against studying physics and urged to study math instead?
(a) It was believed that all the important physics discoveries had already been made.
(b) Planek knew high-level math but only very basic physics.
(c) A career in math offered greater financial opportunities for him.
(d) The government often arrested those who delved in certain branches of physics.

14. Plate tectonics refers to:
(a) The motion of the Earth's atmosphere.
(b) The mechanism behind sand dunes.
(c) The mechanism behind hurricanes.
(d) The motion of the Earth's crust.

15. The first eruption of Yellowstone took place how many years ago?
(a) 16.5 million.
(b) 19.7 billion.
(c) 74 thousand.
(d) 630 thousand.

Short Answer Questions

1. When was the Big Bang Theory first proposed?

2. In 2003, NASA came up with an estimated age of the universe. What was it?

3. What is an extremophile?

4. What components were central to the apparatus that Henry Cavendish used to determine the density of Earth?

5. Scientists eventually figured out that certain unusual rocks near Manson, Iowa, were not because of ancient volcanic activity as they first surmised, but the result of what?

(see the answer keys)

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