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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How long did Harrison work before receiving his monetary reward?
(a) 10 years.
(b) 40 years.
(c) 30 years.
(d) 50 years.

2. What role did the Board of Longitude play?
(a) Test the various proposals to the solution to longitude.
(b) Provided funding for research to solve the longitude problem.
(c) Bring an international committee to review the longitude problem.
(d) Unite angered seamen around the longitude prolem.

3. What year was Harrison born?
(a) 1727.
(b) 1715.
(c) 1693.
(d) 1650.

4. How was John Harrison educated?
(a) He had no formal education.
(b) He attended elementary school in his town.
(c) He learned alongside Newton.
(d) He went to Oxford.

5. At the end of Chapter 6: The Prize, how had Newton changed his thinking about the longitude problem?
(a) He wrote about the benefits to an astronomical solution.
(b) He began to think a clock might solve the longitude problem.
(c) He began to believe that there was no hope for solving the longitude problem.
(d) He was so frustrated he gave up the quest to solve longitude.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did WIlliam Whiston contribute to the longitude debate?

2. What was the powder of sympathy method to determine longitude called?

3. What does the coiled balance spring do in clocks?

4. What could have avoided the tragedy near the Scilly Islands?

5. What did Huygens and Hooke fight over?

Short Essay Questions

1. What did the Longitude Act establish?

2. Compare Newton's thoughts about the solution of the longitude problem at the beginning of Chapter 6: The Prize to his thoughts at the end of the chapter.

3. Why is the story of Sir Clowdisley included in Chapter 2: The Sea Before Time?

4. Who were the early players in the longitude prize described in Chapter 6: The Prize. What role did they play?

5. What was the result of Hooke and Huygens not producing a successful clock that worked at sea?

6. What were the problems with William Whiston's proposal for determining longitude?

7. In Harrison's early clockmaking years, what was his goal?

8. What was the Longitude Act of 1714?

9. Describe John Harrison's family.

10. In 1740, the Centurion set sail for the South Pacific without Harrison's clock. What might have been different about the voyage if they would have taken the clock? Why?

(see the answer keys)

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