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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. Which of the following is one of the "great demotions" that Sagan cites?
(a) There are planets orbiting other stars.
(b) Light and magnetism are the same thing.
(c) The Earth is 6 billion years old.
(d) There may have been life on Mars.

2. Where does Neptune fall in the mission plan for the Voyager probes?
(a) It is their final planetary destination.
(b) They will go into decaying orbit around it.
(c) They will return to the inner solar system after passing it.
(d) They will pass by it only at an immense distance

3. What visual resolution would be required to determine that humans are related to the intelligence on Earth?
(a) 10 meters.
(b) 10 cm.
(c) 1 cm.
(d) 1 meter.

4. What is the most important thing that would immediately be apparent to any alien intelligence that found the Voyager probes?
(a) That the probes were intelligently designed.
(b) How to decode the records.
(c) The location of Earth.
(d) The human DNA sequence.

5. What are the records on the Voyager craft engraved in?
(a) Lead.
(b) Iron.
(c) Gold.
(d) Platinum.

Short Answer Questions

1. What punishment did Galileo suffer as a result of his works?

2. What planet did Sagan spend a great deal of time studying when an important space probe passed near it in 1976?

3. Who was the first to discover moons around another planet?

4. Besides the Voyager spacecraft, what does Sagan cite as a major triumph by NASA?

5. Titan orbits what planet?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Saga claim that human beings expressed their desire to wander as civilization grew?

2. How has the attitude of the Catholic church towards Galileo changed over time?

3. Why is it difficult to detect intelligent life on Earth?

4. What are the "great demotions" that Sagan refers to?

5. Briefly describe the progress made to undermine the geocentric theory.

6. What are the distinguishing characteristics of the planet Uranus?

7. What questions does Sagan say he intends to address in this book?

8. What does the Strong Anthropomorphic principle suggest?

9. What advantage make it more likely that the Voyager records will eventually be found?

10. What was Sagan's involvement in the passage of Mars by the Viking probe?

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