Positive Lightning (Reading)

Click the link below for the reading passage:

Positive Lightning

1) From paragraph 1, line 12, which of the following words is closest in meaning to "vicinity"?

A) weather
B) area
C) aircraft
D) sky


2) From prargraph 2, line 6, what does "them" refer to?

A) witnesses
B) parachutes
C) student and instructor
D) fragments


3) From paragraph 3, which of the following sentences best restates: "The vast vertical energy transfers involved in storm cell formation cause a strong negative charge to develop at the bottom of the cloud, which in turn attracts a positive charge on the ground underneath"?

A) The negative charge at the bottom of the cloud is the result of energy transfer with in the cloud and between the cloud and the positively charged earth below.
B) Because the ground is positively charged and the cloud base is negatively charged, there is a large transfer of energy in the storm cell.
C) The positively charged ground is attracted by the negatively charged cloud base because of the enormous energy transfers that occur when a storm develops.
D) The positive charge on the ground and the negative charge at the cloud base are a product of the large energy transfers that occur during storm development.


4) From paragraph 4, all of the following statements about negative lightning is true?

A) Negative lightning almost always strikes people and airplanes with detrimental results.
B) When negative lightning hits an airplane it is typically rerouted harmlessly to surfaces that cannot transfer electricity.
C) The low current of the lightning is what makes it less dangerous.
D) People are often struck by lightning more than once.


5) From paragraph 4, line 4, which of the following words is closest in meaning to "documented"?

A) recorded
B) filed
C) understood
D) referenced


6) Considering the material used in the construction of the Dunstable glider did not sufficiently demystify:

A) The hollow piece of metal forced into a solid bar.
B) The explosive delamination.
C) The extreme temperature experienced by a conducting bolt.
D) The shock waves that destroyed the glider.


7) Which of the following is NOT a difference between positive and negative lightning?

A) Negative lightning is more common but less powerful than positive lightning.
B) Negative lightning strikes the positively charged ground below the storm, while positive lightning strikes a negatively charged object away from the storm.
C) With positive lightning, the positive charge at the top of the cloud is balanced by a negative charge at the base, but with negative lightning, the negative charge at the top of the cloud is balanced by a positive charge below.
D) Negative lightning has been well-known to researchers for a number of years, while positive lighting is only just being studied in depth now.


8) From paragraph 6, line 5, which of the following words is closest in meaning to "immediately"?

A) presently
B) instantly
C) directly
D) precisely


9) Why does the author mention "sprites, jets and ELVES" in paragraph 9?

A) To give an example of something that astronauts discovered.
B) To illustrate phenomena that a study of positive lightning might shed light on.
C) To give an example of bizarre forms of high altitude lightning.
D) To summarize one of the main points of the passage.


10) From paragraph 9, what can be inferred about "high altitude lightning"?

A) It cannot be easily studied from the ground.
B) Astronauts were first sent to study it.
C) It's energy will likely be used as a power source one day.
D) It is a negative result of positive lightning.


11) Select three sentences that best summarize the passage.

A) The Dunstable glider drew attention to the phenomenon of positive lightning as a result of its crash.

B) Negative lightning is less powerful than positive lightning.

C) Positive lightning has the potential to help scientists learn more about the weather and may contribute to future advances.

D) Positive lightning is different to negative lightning in several significant ways.

E) Scientists had difficulty understanding how the metal rod from the glider got crushed.

F) Modern airplanes have never damaged by either type of lightning.

How to Buy Happiness (Listening)

1) What is the main topic of the lecture?

A) Reasons that people with money are unhappy.
B) Ways to use money to make yourself happier.
C) The psychological effects of money and spending habits.
D) The social influence of money.


2) Which of the following is NOT a common problem for people who win the lottery?

A) They are overly generous and become depressed because they have nothing left for themselves.
B) Their relationships suffer because their friends and family make financial requests.
C) Winners often become less social and more selfish.
D) They overspend and become trapped in debt.


3) Which of the following is true of the Vancouver study? (choose two options)

A) Coffee was frequently a prosocial and a personal spending choice.
B) The amount of money used significantly affected the participants happiness.
C) People who participated in personal spending were happier at the end of the day than those who spent prosocially.
D) The participants were not good global representatives due to their social standing and wealth.


4) What was a significant discovery the researchers made when studying differences and similarities across cultures?

A) Canadian people often buy small gifts for others while Ugandans buy lifesaving medicine.
B) The specific way the money is spent has an important effect on the amount of happiness felt by the gift giver.
C) Men often buy things for women selflessly.
D) Giving charity is almost universally well correlated to happiness.


5) At 07:36, why does the speaker say, "What about your work life, which is where we spend all the rest of our time when we're not with the people we know?"

A) He wants some suggestions from the audience.
B) He believes that people most people don't know their colleagues well.
C) He wants to introduce the next main point of his lecture.
D) He is going to offer advice about how to spend money on strangers.


6) Why did the speaker discuss dodgeball teams?

A) He received a lot of criticism for not including them in his original study.
B) He wanted to show that his conclusions are valid for many different contexts.
C) He wants to demonstrate that spending money on personal hobbies can have benefits.
D) He believes that sales teams and dodgeball teams are quite similar.

The Other Mystery of Easter Island (Reading)

Click on the link below to access the reading passage. 

The Other Mystery of Easter Island

1) According to the passage, Easter Island is most famous for its

A) unusual language.
B) secretive inhabitants.
C) peculiar monuments.
D) obscure exile.


2) Each of the following is true about the language of Easter Island EXCEPT:

A) It has so far remained incomprehensible to scholars.
B) It is unique within its geographical area.
C) It is possibly closely related to Spanish.
D) It is a relatively recent language.


3) The word "decipher" (paragraph 2, line 8) is closest in meaning to:

A) decode
B) contrast
C) evaluate
D) discover


4) According to the passage, Rongorongo disappeared because

A) All of its speakers were killed or taken as slaves. 
B) It was too closely related to the religious beliefs of the population.
C) Languages of the colonizers were dominated because they were easy to learn.
D) New settlers to the island outlawed its use.


5) The word "forthcoming" (paragraph 6, line 1) is closest in meaning to:

A) belligerent
B) cooperative
C) unstable
D) comprehensible


6) Which of the following was NOT a difficulty encountered by people wishing to translate the tablets?

A) The islanders were unwilling to help.
B) There are several meanings for each symbol.
C) Europeans had suppressed the language.
D) One symbol could represent an idea rather than just an object.


7) The phrase "the artifact" (paragraph 8, line 4) refers to:

A) the Mamri tablet
B) a lunar calendar
C) a four-foot-long scepter
D) an Easter Island Chief


8) Which of the following best expresses the essential information in the sentence, "Should anyone find a workable translation for Rongorongo, the knowledge stored on the remaining tablets might explain the mysterious statues of Easter Island, the sudden appearance of the written language, and the island’s history and customs as whole" (paragraph 10)?

A) The information contained on the tablets might address several important questions about Easter Island in the event that the language is translated.

B) Issues such as the mysterious statues, the emergence of written language, and the history and customs of the island might be explained by the data recorded on the tablets.

C) No one has completely analyzed Rongorongo, making it difficult to extract the knowledge contained in the tables.

D) Mysteries pertaining to Easter Island are likely to remain until linguists can unravel the Rongorongo written language.


9) Match the following pieces of information to the respective researchers:

A) The first to attempt to translate the language.

B) The first to identify the purpose of a tablet.

C) Realized the the symbols come in groups of three.

D) The first to make a major discovery about the tablets.

E) Successfully translated a portion of text.

F) Identified all the components of the language.

G) Misled by a young boy.

H) Focused his research on a staff with symbols on it.

I) Asked an elderly islander to help him translate.

J) Believed all the texts were connected to the creation of the world.


Thompson
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Hevesy
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Fischer
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Natural Selection and the Owl Butterfly (Listening)

1) What does the speaker mainly discuss?

A) The process by which animals develop specific characteristics over time.
B) The purpose of the owl butterfly's spot.
C) The influence of humans on evolution and natural selection.
D) The weaknesses of evolutionary theory as illustrated by the owl butterfly.


2) Which of the following are possible theories about the purpose of the spots on the owl butterfly's wings? (choose

A) They make the butterfly look larger than it is.
B) They intimidate predators.
C) They camouflage the butterfly.
D) They distract predators from the butterfly's body.


3) At 7:35, the speaker says "So, it's just a slight probability. Now, you might say, OK, what's 1% going to do? But when you compound that over thousands and thousands of generations, all of a sudden, this trait might dominate."

Why does he say: "Ok, what's 1% going to do"?

A) To present the other side of the debate.
B) To illustrate the insignificance of the figure.
C) To introduce a new point.
D) To encourage students to think about the issues themselves.


4) Which of the following is true of the development of the butterfly's spot?

A) It occurs within the lifetime of one butterfly.
B) It is the result of the ever increasing survival rates of its ancestors.
C) It is caused by variation within the genes of a generation of butterflies.
D) It was the result of the butterfly trying to avoid predators.


5) What does the speaker say about the complexity of a butterfly's wing?

A) It is far more complex than most people realize.
B) It is a relatively straightforward example.
C) It seems complex because it is difficult to relate to.
D) Compared to other insects, it is a fairly simple example.


6) From highest to lowest, organize the butterfly wings in order of survival rate for their respective insects.

1) ___________________
2) ___________________
3) ___________________
4) ___________________


A)











B)

C)

D)

The Linguistic Genius of Babies (Listening)

1) What is the lecture mainly about?

A) The unique ability of babies to absorb information quickly and easily.
B) The way that a mother and her child can connect through language.
C) The accomplishments of a selection of talented children.
D) The way an infant's brain organizes linguistic information.


2) Listen to the beginning of the lecture again. At 00:31, she says, "The modern tools of neuroscience are demonstrating to us that what's going on up there is nothing short of rocket science." What does that mean?

A) She is expressing wonder at the power of a baby's brain.
B) She is speculating about the future of the child's career.
C) She is comparing the complexity of neuroscience to rocket science.
D) She is explaining that modern techniques can reveal how the mind works.


3) According to the lecture, the "critical period" is

A) not a theory that is accepted by all researchers.
B) the most important span of time in a human's life for language learning.
C) the time during which language learning begins to decline.
D) a cycle of highs and lows for language learners.


4) How do the statistics of a language affect a baby's development?

A) The baby learns to distinguish /l/ and /r/ sounds by listening to their parents.
B) The baby becomes more sensitive to the common sounds of their parents' language.
C) The baby calculates the number of occurrences of specific sounds and uses those figures to analyze the language it hears.
D) The baby distinguishes its language from other languages by the end of it's first year.


5) Which of the following statements are true about infant language acquisition? (choose two options)

A) Social elements of the brain are crucial to language learning.
B) Baby's have significant difficulties when you change their language environment suddenly.
C) The sounds in some languages such as Mandarin are more difficult for children to distinguish than those of other languages.
D) The television language lessons were mostly ineffectual for the babies in the speaker's experiments.

The Great Moon Hoax (Reading)

Click on the link below for the reading passage:

The Great Moon Hoax

1) Before 1835, John Herschel was famous for:

A) constructing a massive telescope in South Africa.
B) being honored by the British government,
C) identifying and naming the a number of moons.
D) discovering life on the moon.


2) The word "teeming" (paragraph 2, line 5) is closest in meaning to:

A) abound
B) generating
C) devoid
D) distributing


3) The author mentions the book, Christian Philosopher, or the Connexion of Science and Philosophy with Religion (paragraph 3):

A) to illustrate the sophisticated predictions made by scientists in the 19th century.
B) to provide evidence for the possibility of life on the moon.
C) because it brought scientific theories and religious beliefs together for the first time.
D) to give an example of the preposterous speculations made by respected scientists.


4) The word "outlandish" (paragraph 4, line 5) is closest in meaning to:

A) peculiar
B) fabricated
C) distinctive
D) disillusioning


5) Which of the following can be inferred from paragraph 6?

A) The author of the story had invented it so that he could sell more copies of his pamphlet about newly-discovered moon species.
B) Many people remained skeptical about the claims made in the Sun.
C) In the 19th century, it was uncommon for newspapers to verify the sources of their information.
D) The Sun became the top newspaper in the country because other newspapers republished their articles.


6) The word "it" (paragraph 7, line 5) refers to:

A) the Edinburgh Journal of Science
B) Europe
C) story
D) hoax


7) Which of the following best expresses the essential information in the sentence, "Most accounts say the story was written by the Sun’s Cambridge-educated reporter Richard Adams Locke, and that he did it as a satire to mock the gullible public and “scientists” like Thomas Dick, who made wild claims based on nothing but speculation." (paragraph 8) 

A) Most agree that the story was written by Richard Locke in an attempt to support the predictions made Thomas Dick.
B) Few people disagree with the suggestion that Thomas Dick and the credulous public were the subjects of Richard Locke's ridicule.
C) It is generally accepted that the naive public, and the absurdity of scientists like Dick, were satirized by the articles which were written by Locke.
D) Thomas Dick was the subject of a parody which was published in the Sun.


8) All of the following are correct about the Sun newspaper EXCEPT:

A) The newspaper gained the largest readership in the word.
B) The author of the articles received permission from Herschel to publish them.
C) Publishers at the newspaper refused to acknowledge the falsity of the articles.
D) The published additional pamphlets to capitalize on their successful stories.


9) Choose THREE sentences that best complete the summary of the passage. Some answer choices do not belong in the summary because they express ideas that are not present in the passage or are minor ideas in the passage.

"The Great Moon Hoax" was an extraordinary success both in the wide reach the article had and the financial benefits that would result.

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A) Although John Herschel was a well-respected astronomer in his time, he made some unusual predictions about life on the moon.

B) The Sun newspaper published a six-part series about life on the moon supposedly supported by the work of John Herschel.

C) Thomas Dick believed that there were as many as 21 trillion inhabitants in the solar system, and as many as 4 million on the moon.

D) The articles suggested a wide variety of life on the moon and much of the public accepted the information without question.

E) The Sun became profoundly popular in spite of their series on the moon being revealed as fake.

F) Herschel, being a famous moon scholar, was quite annoyed at being tricked by the false depictions presented in the articles.

Archeology from Space (Listening)

Questions

1) What is the lecture mainly about?

A) Techniques for finding marine life.
B) Using technology to improve an established field.
C) Children's ingenuity leading to later career choices.
D) Discovering new ancient sites in Egypt.


2) At 0:50 in the lecture, the speaker says: "I realized that seeing with my naked eyes alone wasn't enough. Because all of the sudden in Egypt my beach had grown from a tiny beach in Maine to one eight hundred miles long next to the Nile, and my sand dollars had grown to the size of cities."

Why does she say: "I realized that seeing with my naked eyes alone wasn't enough"?

A) It was more difficult to see beneath the sand in Egypt than in Maine.
B) She needed to see an optometrist because her eyes weren't functioning correctly.
C) Searching with basic tools was impractical due to the scale of the operation.
D) It was impossible to search Egyptian beaches without satellites.


3) How do satellites help researchers find ancient Egyptian cities?

A) They can observe the pink chemicals used in ancient Egyptian construction.
B) They can highlight chemical differences between the man-made structures and the surrounding landscape.
C) They can see color differences between the archaeological sites and the natural environment.
D) They provide a large map of the area making it easier to predict where sites can be excavated.


4) From the lecture, what can be inferred about the Nile River?

A) It destroyed the city that the researchers were looking for.
B) It used to flow near the city of Itjtawy before it dried up.
C) It is much wider than other rivers in the world.
D) Its course is not fixed and varies over the centuries.


5) Which of the following was evidence that the site discovered was the correct location? (choose 2 options)

A) A dense layer of pottery.
B) Handcrafted stone.
C) A piece of jewellery.
D) A layer of thick mud.


(Answers will be posted tomorrow.)