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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What has happened to the weather over the last 100 years or so, as Green mentions in his essay on Air-Conditioning?
(a) It has gotten hotter.
(b) It has stayed the same.
(c) It has gotten colder.
(d) He does not mention the weather in this section.

2. About how many copies of The Great Gatsby sell in a typical year in at the time of this book's publication in 2021?
(a) 8,000,000.
(b) 1,000,000.
(c) 2,000,000.
(d) 500,000.

3. How old was Green when he began participating in the Academic Decathlon in his review on the same subject?
(a) 18.
(b) About 14 or 15.
(c) 9.
(d) 12.

4. What book and movie popularized but also led to misconceptions about velociraptors?
(a) Large Teeth.
(b) Dinos!
(c) Paleontologists.
(d) Jurassic Park.

5. What did a college girlfriend of Green's once tell him her biggest fear was?
(a) Failure.
(b) Death.
(c) Geese.
(d) Spiders.

6. Who took ownership of the site of the Lascaux Cave Paintings after WWII?
(a) The French government.
(b) The Swiss government.
(c) The U.S. Government.
(d) The German government.

7. Which kind of organisms tend to have shorter temporal ranges than simple ones?
(a) Land-based ones.
(b) Blue ones.
(c) Water-based ones.
(d) Complex ones.

8. What was one of the top of the 10 things that Green said scared him on the podcast "10 Things That Scare Me"?
(a) A global pandemic.
(b) Spiders.
(c) Jell-O.
(d) Deer.

9. What were some of the subjects of the Lascaux Cave Paintings?
(a) Celestial bodies.
(b) Animals.
(c) Waterways.
(d) Ghosts.

10. What did a 2004 Cornell study find affected workplace productivity, as Green explains it in the section on air-conditioning?
(a) Whether or not there were snacks available.
(b) How much caffeine workers consumed.
(c) How many books were in the office.
(d) Office temperature.

11. Who discovered penicillin?
(a) James Ogston.
(b) Alexander Fleming.
(c) Joseph Listerine.
(d) Rosalind Franklin.

12. At the end of Part II, what animal does Green say is terribly misunderstood in our culture because of a decades-old Disney documentary?
(a) Cats.
(b) Bears.
(c) Deer.
(d) Lemmings.

13. What is the first item or idea in this book that Green awards five stars to?
(a) The Human Capacity for Wonder.
(b) The internet.
(c) Sunsets.
(d) Dogs.

14. What class of drugs are usually used to treat Staphylococcus infections?
(a) Antibiotics.
(b) Beta blockers.
(c) Anti-virals.
(d) Narcotics.

15. Who is Green's brother that he often works with?
(a) Michael.
(b) Hank.
(c) Jim.
(d) John.

Short Answer Questions

1. What items did Green find particularly comforting to look over when he was being bullied at school as a child?

2. What did the author of The Great Gatsby think of some of its earliest reviews?

3. Where did Green get a Staphylococcus aureus infection several years before writing the book?

4. How does Green remember the smell of rain from his childhood?

5. Who wrote the book The Great Gatsby?

(see the answer keys)

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