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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How long did George Waterston sit with his colleagues by the first Scottish osprey nest and keep it under observation through the telescopic sights of rifles?
(a) 50 years.
(b) 5 years.
(c) 30 years.
(d) 20 years.

2. How many years after viewing the Cornwall eclipse, did the author view an eclipse in Turkey?
(a) 11.
(b) 13.
(c) 5.
(d) 7.

3. How fast can hares run?
(a) 15 miles an hour.
(b) 25 miles an hour.
(c) 30 miles an hour.
(d) 40 miles an hour.

4. What did the refugee do for the New Year in "The Student's Tale"?
(a) Went to the park and sang songs.
(b) Played with children.
(c) Hid in his room.
(d) Told stories.

5. When did Cabrol watch a television documentary about the crater lake atop Licancabur on the Bolivian Altiplano?
(a) 2002.
(b) 2000.
(c) 1999.
(d) 2001.

6. How old was Nathalie Cabrol when she watched the first moon landing on television?
(a) 6.
(b) 8.
(c) 5.
(d) 7.

7. Where did Macdonald's parents buy a house in 1976?
(a) Abbotswood, Surrey.
(b) Maybury, Surrey.
(c) Camberley, Surrey.
(d) Earlswood, Surrey.

8. In Oregon, how much land did a honey fungus cover?
(a) About 5 square miles.
(b) Almost 4 square miles.
(c) 7 square miles.
(d) 2 square miles.

9. When did Samuel Tyalor Coleridge write of a murmuration?
(a) 1785.
(b) 1787.
(c) 1793.
(d) 1799.

10. Including the author, how many people viewed an eclipse in Turkey together?
(a) 100s.
(b) 11.
(c) 4.
(d) 50.

11. When was the eclipse in India that forced an observer to retreat to his room and plunge his head into water?
(a) 1869.
(b) 1853.
(c) 1871.
(d) 1884.

12. What was a chaffinch nest made from that the author collected in "Nests"?
(a) Leaves, straw, and grass clippings.
(b) Threads, hair, and feathers.
(c) Straw, soft twigs, and clay.
(d) Horsehair, moss, lichen, and pigeon feathers.

13. Where did Macdonald join Cabrol and a team for an expedition to high-altitude desert to test methods of detecting life on Mars?
(a) Peru.
(b) Chile.
(c) Argentina.
(d) Colombia.

14. At what altitude is the crater lake atop Licancabur on the Bolivian Altiplano?
(a) Nearly 20,000 feet.
(b) 19,643 feet.
(c) 18,704 feet.
(d) Almost 19,000 feet.

15. If writers have subjects that underlie everything they write, what does the author say that her subject is?
(a) Love.
(b) Home.
(c) Hope.
(d) Death.

Short Answer Questions

1. When was Cabrol the chief scientist on a team testing an experimental rover in the Atacama Desert?

2. In the "Introduction," what extinction does the author say that we are living through?

3. When did Macdonald and her parents leave Tekels Park?

4. In "Sex, Death, Mushrooms," for how many years had the author gone with Nick on autumn mushroom hunts?

5. What did the author see flying in the air in "Ants"?

(see the answer keys)

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