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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What do doctors dispense to workers who are cooling down the lava in Iceland to soothe their hoarse throats?
(a) Swedish chest lozenges.
(b) Norwegian chest drops.
(c) Finnish cough drops.
(d) Icelandic throat lozenges.

2. When Magnus Magnusson takes the author to visit an old monument in Iceland, what do they do?
(a) Read its inscription and view the landscape.
(b) Leave a wreathe and sing a battle song.
(c) Say a prayer for those who died in the eruption.
(d) Carve a new inscription on the monument.

3. How tall does the erupting volcano in Heimaey grow to above sea level?
(a) One hundred feet.
(b) Three thousand feet.
(c) Seven hundred feet.
(d) One thousand two hundred feet.

4. What do work crews call the two-million ton floating mountain that breaks off during the 1973 eruptions?
(a) Haukadalur the Ominous.
(b) Flakkarinn the Wanderer.
(c) Dettifoss the Mountain.
(d) Surtsey the Fiery.

5. In gallons, how much water is pumped onto the lava flows of Heimaey each day?
(a) Thirty thousand.
(b) Thirty million.
(c) Thirteen thousand.
(d) Thirteen hundred.

6. On January 23, 1973, the five thousand residents of Heimaey, the only populated island of Vestmannaeyjar, are threatened by what?
(a) Lava.
(b) War.
(c) Cracking ice shelf.
(d) Flu epidemic.

7. Vestmannaeyjar holds how much of Iceland's total population?
(a) Forty-two and a half percent.
(b) Two and a half percent.
(c) Twelve percent.
(d) Twenty-two percent.

8. Heimaey is about the same size as:
(a) San Francisco north of Chinatown.
(b) Seattle west of the Space Needle.
(c) Manhattan south of the Empire State Building.
(d) Washington, D.C. east of the Washington Monument.

9. What ultimately happens to the moving piece of mountain on Vestmannaeyjar?
(a) Completely destroys the town and stops.
(b) Falls into the ocean.
(c) Breaks up into smaller, non-moving pieces.
(d) Hits another mountain and stops.

10. In Hawaii, how many volcanoes are there within the group that includes Mauna Loa?
(a) Ten.
(b) Two.
(c) Seven.
(d) Five.

11. After the eruptions of 1973 end, how many of Heimaey's evacuees return?
(a) All of them.
(b) Only a handful.
(c) Half.
(d) Two-thirds.

12. How does Sigurdur Steinthorsson monitor volcanic gases during the 1973 eruption?
(a) Infrared glasses.
(b) Particle detector.
(c) Measuring static electricity.
(d) Smoking cigars.

13. What gives Thorbjorn Sigurgeirsson the idea to cool the oncoming flow of lava?
(a) Watching children play by the water.
(b) Stories he'd heard of ancestors doing the same.
(c) Watching lava cool by the sea.
(d) His post-graduate studies.

14. What does "City Flow" do in Heimaey?
(a) Melts the moving mountain.
(b) Crushes houses in its path.
(c) Moves lava streams away from the town.
(d) Kills twenty-nine workers.

15. Results of the U.S. Army Air Corps' actions on an insulating vent on Mauna Loa volcano in 1935 cannot be confirmed because:
(a) The sensors melt.
(b) Workers can't get close enough.
(c) The volcano stops erupting.
(d) The Corps' loses funding.

Short Answer Questions

1. Sveinn Eiriksson is a man of:

2. What does the author observe about historical attempts to control lava?

3. What is Thorbjorn Sigurgeirsson's vocation?

4. What does the U.S. Army Air Corps do to an insulating vent on Mauna Loa volcano in 1935?

5. What nickname do the residents of Heimaey give to Sveinn Eiriksson?

(see the answer keys)

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