View a FREE sample

This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Up in the Air: Chapter 1.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Which country produces the most emissions?
(a) All African nations combined.
(b) Russia.
(c) The U.S.
(d) China.

2. What invention launched the Industrial Revolution?
(a) Karl Benz’s automobile.
(b) Eli Whitney’s cotton gin.
(c) Da Vinci’s flying machine.
(d) James Watt’s new steam engine.

3. Lackner and a friend, Christopher Wendt, met over beers and starting wondering what?
(a) How long it would be until the earth died.
(b) Why no one was coming up with big, crazy ideas anymore.
(c) Where the best beer is brewed.
(d) Why humans are always screwing up.

4. How far underground would carbon dioxide be injected?
(a) 10 miles.
(b) 1 mile.
(c) 1/2 mile.
(d) A few inches.

5. What idea did Lackner and his friend Wendt come up with?
(a) Ireland.
(b) Ten billion years.
(c) Auxons.
(d) Humans are not very intelligent.

Short Answer Questions

1. In Down the River Chapter 1, what examples of metaphors does Elizabeth Kolbert give involving rivers?

2. How much land mass has the Isle de Jean Charles lost since the 1950s?

3. To what does Kolbert compare the bringing back of a species from the brink of extinction?

4. What does Kolbert end the chapter wondering about all the burning trash, the acres of glass, the boxes of bumblebees, the vegetables raised on chemicals and captured carbon dioxide?

5. What is the strongest argument for gene editing cane toads, house mice, and ship rats?

(see the answer key)

This section contains 340 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample