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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 6: The Prize.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the main point of Chapter 6: The Prize?
(a) Explain the clock based approach to longitude.
(b) Award a prize of land for an article published about latitude.
(c) Determine the winner of the longitude prize.
(d) Explain the goal of the people in the book: win the prize by solving the problem of longitude.

2. How accurate was the solution to longitude to be?
(a) Less than ten degrees.
(b) Exact, no room for error.
(c) At least five degrees.
(d) Within half a degree.

3. In order for Ditton's and Whiston's plan to determine longitude to work, what would have to be done?
(a) Accurate clocks would need to be on all ships.
(b) Ship captains would need to go to "Longitude School."
(c) A fleet of ships would need to be anchored at 600-mile intervals in the ocean.
(d) New discoveries in compasses would need to be made.

4. The Parliamentary committee assembled to respond to the problem of longitude relied on which two experts?
(a) Ptolomy and Jupiter.
(b) Newton and Halley.
(c) Flamsteed and Thacker.
(d) Whiston and Ditton.

5. What was built at Greenwich Park?
(a) The Celestial Palace.
(b) The Royal Observatory.
(c) St. Paul's Cathedral.
(d) The Paris Observatory.

Short Answer Questions

1. When the Centurion set sail for the South Pacific, what did they not take with them?

2. What was Harrison's most prized accomplishment?

3. Hooke nor Huygens were able to:

4. What does the term "dead reckoning" refer to?

5. What was the name of the Portugese ship described in Chapter 2: The Sea Before Time that ran into a Spanish fleet?

(see the answer key)

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