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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. The ___________ can serve as a sort of DNA fingerprint if a person wants to determine if a plant is a Monsanto plant.
(a) Coloring.
(b) Marker gene.
(c) Cell structure.
(d) Temperature.

2. The French romantics were said to have experimented with ________ after Napoleon's troops brought it back with them from Egypt.
(a) Speed.
(b) Opium.
(c) Cocaine.
(d) Marijuana.

3. What is Pollan not allowed to do with the NewLeaf potatoes at the end of the year, according to the law?
(a) Hide them.
(b) Sell them.
(c) Eat them.
(d) Replant them.

4. ________, Pollan believes, is brutally reductive, simplifying nature's incomprehensible complexity to something humanly manageable.
(a) Chemistry.
(b) Agriculture.
(c) Science.
(d) Sociology.

5. In order to reduce time and energy spent on growing male sinsemilla plants which are useless, growers started ______.
(a) Using clones.
(b) Killing male plants.
(c) Changing the light patterns.
(d) Using different seeds.

Short Answer Questions

1. What kind of storm took place in December of 1999, causing the gardens of Versailles to be ruined?

2. A _______ is one that is used for getting cuttings. Like the apples, the result of the impact of this may be detrimental to the species.

3. Psychoactive drugs serve as bridges between the worlds of matter and spirit, or in modern language _______and consciousness.

4. What is second nature to a gardener, who leans that every advance in his control of the garden is also an invitation for disaster?

5. The book states that the effect of making pot illegal was that the counterculture engaged in _______the plant.

Short Essay Questions

1. What happens to the animal in the wild who decides to eat hallucinogens and thus takes in the toxins of these plants?

2. What does Pollan begin to realize after the powerful storm that ruined a part of the famous gardens of Versailles?

3. Why were the Irish open to farming the potato in order to provide food for themselves?

4. What does Pollan believe the experience of the sublime has to do with the experience of nature?

5. Where was marijuana primarily grown up until the early 1980s when the war on drugs began?

6. What are some of the reasons why potatoes were not very popular in Europe around the late 1500s?

7. What parts of the marijuana plant are supposed to be smoked?

8. Compare and contrast the tastes of plants which are supposed to be eaten with those which are not supposed to be eaten.

9. What was going on at the time of Pollan's visit to Amsterdam for research for this book?

10. What are some of the possible genetically modified food advances people might see in the future, according to Pollan?

(see the answer keys)

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