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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What campaign did geologist Clair Patterson take on?
(a) Removing chlorine from swimming pools.
(b) Fortifying milk with vitamin D.
(c) Adding fluoride to drinking water.
(d) Removing lead additives from gasoline.

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

3. An asteroid strike on Earth would most likely affect the climate for how long?
(a) 500 years.
(b) 1 million years.
(c) 10,000 years.
(d) 5 years.

4. What is an extremophile?
(a) An extremely large living organism.
(b) A researcher who explores extremely isolated regions.
(c) An organism adapted to living in extreme conditions.
(d) A scientist who studies climate extremes.

5. Scientists are aware of at least how many galaxies in the universe?
(a) 140 billion.
(b) 90 trillion.
(c) 110 thousand.
(d) 20 million.

6. Max Planck ignored those who urged him to avoid physics and ended up doing groundbreaking work on:
(a) Acceleration.
(b) Entropy.
(c) Electromagnetism.
(d) Optics.

7. What organization opposed geologist Clair Patterson and his campaign?
(a) American Petroleum Institute.
(b) Swimming Pool Safety Institute.
(c) American Dairy Association.
(d) American Academy of Pediatrics.

8. In addition to being a seventeenth-century astronomer, Christopher Wren designed:
(a) Cathedrals.
(b) Swords.
(c) Eyeglasses.
(d) Clothes.

9. James Hutton was a geologist who wondered why:
(a) There are no polar bears in Antarctica.
(b) Polar ice caps do not melt.
(c) Seashell fossils are found on mountaintops.
(d) The Great Barrier Reef is off the coast of Australia.

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

11. The fact that Pluto has a moon was not discovered until:
(a) 1991.
(b) 1978.
(c) 1936.
(d) 1965.

12. How far away is Proxima Centauri from Earth?
(a) 120 million times farther than our sun.
(b) 100 million times farther than our moon.
(c) 390 million times farther than Venus.
(d) 700 million times farther than Mars.

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

14. When was the Big Bang Theory first proposed?
(a) 1850s.
(b) 1920s.
(c) 1960s.
(d) 1790s.

15. In 1971, Mike Voorhies discovered an amazing fossil bed in Nebraska full of skeletons of prehistoric animals killed 12 millions years ago. How did they die?
(a) Inhaling ash spewed by a volcano.
(b) Drowning in a massive flood.
(c) Frozen in a freak snowstorm.
(d) Infected by deadly bacteria.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. With scientists having found so many dinosaur bones by the dawn of the twentieth century, what did they conclude about the age of Earth?

3. The British astronomer Martin Rees hypothesizes that there could be an infinite number of what?

4. Earth is composed of 8 to 12 larger plates and about how many smaller ones?

5. Invented in the 1930s, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) have proven to be damaging to:

(see the answer keys)

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