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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What did Marcellus do while Syracuse was in siege?
(a) Conquered Athens.
(b) Conquered Sparta.
(c) Overran much of Corinth.
(d) Overran much of Sicily.

2. When did Marcellus notice a poorly guarded wall and tower in Syracuse?
(a) 215 B.C.
(b) 209 B.C.
(c) 212 B.C.
(d) 225 B.C.

3. What does it take to cause a chain reaction in a nuclear explosion?
(a) 100 clusters of atoms.
(b) A single particle of an atom.
(c) 15 atoms fused together.
(d) 30 atoms fused together.

4. What scientist do most people believe was the first to understand the laws of gravitation?
(a) Blaise Pascal.
(b) Nicholas Copernicius.
(c) Sir Isaac Newton.
(d) Archimedes.

5. How many galleys did the Roman general have who attacked Syracuse?
(a) 70.
(b) 50.
(c) 40.
(d) 60.

6. What does radius mean?
(a) Length of a circle from the center to the rim.
(b) The distance around a circle.
(c) The longest chord of a circle.
(d) The shortest chord of a circle.

7. What books did Archimedes send to friends in Alexandria with deliberate errors?
(a) On the Measurement of a Circle.
(b) The Quadrature of the Parabola.
(c) On Conoids and Spheroids.
(d) The Sphere and the Cylinder.

8. Which of these is not a plane figure that Archimedes discovered a method for finding the center of gravity?
(a) Triangle.
(b) Parabola.
(c) Parallelogram.
(d) Cone.

9. How much larger did Archimedes believe that the Greek universe (our solar system) was larger than the earth?
(a) 10,000 times.
(b) 30,000 times.
(c) 20,000 times.
(d) 50,000 times.

10. When do most people believe that the first real understanding of the laws of gravitation began?
(a) 17th century.
(b) 300 A.D.
(c) 12th century.
(d) 300 B.C.

11. Where is the center of balance on a spoon?
(a) In the center.
(b) Near the bowl of the spoon.
(c) Near the end of the spoon's handle.
(d) At the bowl of the spoon.

12. What mathematics is needed to figure the cattle problem?
(a) Algebra.
(b) Calculus.
(c) Arithmetic.
(d) Trigonometry.

13. What is the solid of a circle?
(a) Cone.
(b) Sphere.
(c) Box.
(d) Cube.

14. What festival was a favorite of the people in Syracuse?
(a) Festival of the Vine Flower.
(b) Feast to Diana.
(c) Hieros Gamos.
(d) Greater Dionysia.

15. How do people know that some of Archimedes' writings have been lost?
(a) He refers to them or other mathematicians refer to them in other writings.
(b) A list of his writings was engraved on his tomb.
(c) Oral tradition.
(d) A list of them survives.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did Marcellus have his workmen build when he noticed a poorly guarded wall and tower in Syracuse?

2. What calculation today does not use the unusual mathematical properties of a spiral?

3. Which area of scientific discovery was not part of Archimedes work?

4. What is pi?

5. When did Hiero die?

(see the answer keys)

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