The Big Bang occurred
A) at the tip of your nose.
B) at the center of each galaxy.
C) at some undetermined yet vastly distant point.
D) within an unusually large supernova.
Answer:
The climatic zones of Pangaea ranged from
A) glaciation in the south, and a mild temperate climate in the north.
B) cold, dry temperatures in the north, and warm, tropical temperatures in the south.
C) humid uplands in the north, and drier, desert like conditions in the south.
D) widespread glaciation in the north, and a warm, tropical climate in the south.
Answer:
A Mack truck and a Mini Cooper traveling at the same speed collide head-on. The
vehicle to undergo the greatest change in velocity will be the
A) Mini Cooper.
B) Mack truck.
C) same
Answer:
Which of the following molecules would you expect to be the most strongly attracted to
a Cl– ion?
A) H-F
B) H3C-CH3
C) Cl-Cl
D) F-F
E) CCl4
Answer:
If three samples have the half-lives listed below, which sample would remain
radioactive the longest?
A) a sample with a half-life of 20 minutes
B) a sample with a half-life of 20 hours
C) a sample with a half-life of 20 years
D) a sample with a half-life of 20 million years
E) none of the above
Answer:
A high-pressure zone girdles Earth at the 30N and 30S latitudes, causing
A) great deserts, such as the Sahara and Arabia Desert in Africa, the Mojave Desert in
the United States, and the great Victoria Desert in Australia.
B) hot, weak winds in the horse latitudes.
C) a belt of hot and dry surface air.
D) all of these
Answer:
Air that flows northward from the horse latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere deflects
westward to produce the
A) trade winds.
B) westerlies.
C) Gulf Stream.
D) Kuroshio current.
Answer:
Stalactites form from
A) a cave ceiling downward.
B) a cave floor upward.
C) calcium-rich water dripping down from the cave ceiling.
D) the accumulation of calcium-rich water dripping on the cave floor.
Answer:
Which of the following would not be considered a physical property?
A) temperature at which a material catches on fire
B) color
C) conductivity
D) hardness
E) temperature at which a material melts
Answer:
What prevents stars greater than about 100 times the Sun’s mass from existing?
A) The rate of thermal expansion would overcome gravitational attraction leading to
explosion.
B) The gravitational attraction would overcome the rate of thermal expansion leading to
a black hole.
C) Fusion cannot take place at these higher mass levels.
D) The gaseous material of the universe is too widely dispersed to allow for the
formation of stars of this mass.
Answer:
The radial velocity of an Earth satellite is its velocity
A) parallel to the surface of Earth.
B) perpendicular to the surface of Earth.
C) attributed to satellites moving in any direction.
D) none of the above
Answer:
We feel uncomfortably warm on a muggy day because water molecules are
A) evaporating from moist bodies.
B) condensing on our bodies.
C) preventing the evaporation from our moist bodies.
D) jostling about.
Answer:
When visible light is incident upon transparent glass, most atoms in the glass
A) are forced into vibration.
B) resonate.
C) convert the light energy into thermal energy.
Answer:
Edwin Hubble discovered that the farther away a galaxy is the
A) faster it is receding from us.
B) more massive it is.
C) more energetic it is.
D) more black holes it contains.
Answer:
Earth’s magnetic field is not stable; throughout geologic time it has changed direction.
This change is attributed to
A) changes in the direction of fluid flow in the molten outer core of Earth.
B) magnetic pole reversals.
C) fluctuations in the time / space continuum.
D) changes in the direction of fluid flow in the molten inner core of Earth.
Answer:
What is an acid?
A) anything that donates hydrogen ions
B) anything that accepts hydrogen atoms
C) anything that donates hydrogen atoms
D) anything that dissolves metal
E) anything that donates hydronium ions
Answer:
Which of the following compounds has polar covalent bonds?
A) H2O
B) CsF2
C) S8
D) Ne
E) CH4
Answer:
For the astronauts inside an orbiting space vehicle the force of gravity that acts on them
is
A) zero.
B) mainly due to Earth below.
C) mainly due to the mass of the space vehicle.
D) mainly due to nearby planets and stars.
E) none of the above
Answer:
Why should one not stare at the Sun during a partial eclipse?
A) Because, whether there is an eclipse or not, the Sun’s intense radiation can easily
damage our eyes.
B) Because the eclipse event itself creates a lensing effect, which greatly magnifies and
intensifies the Suns rays.
C) Because Sunspots, which are excited by the eclipse event, can easily erupt during the
eclipse.
D) Because Ultraviolet radiation is intensified during the event.
E) Because coronas and corneas are always a bad mix.
Answer:
When salt is introduced to ice, the temperature at which melting occurs is
A) quite unaffected.
B) lowered.
C) increased.
D) dependent on the shape of salt and ice crystals
Answer:
The image below shows a beam of radiation passing between two electrically charged
plates.
Which of the beams is due to an energetic light wave?
A) a
B) b
C) c
D) all of the above
E) none of the above
Answer:
Which contributes more to an atom’s mass: electrons or protons? Which contributes
more to an atom’s size?
A) Protons contribute more to an atom’s mass while electrons contribute more to its
size.
B) Electrons contribute more to an atom’s mass while protons contribute more to its
size.
C) Protons contribute more to both the mass and size of an atom.
D) Electrons contribute more to both the mass and size of an atom.
Answer:
To drop a package to Earth from a satellite, project it
A) straight downward.
B) ahead at satellite speed.
C) behind at satellite speed.
D) none of the above
Answer:
People settle on floodplains because
A) the chance of flooding is very rare.
B) floodplain soil is nutrient rich and good for agriculture.
C) of river access.
D) river access and rich soils.
Answer:
How many grams of sodium chloride are needed to make 15 L of a solution that has a
concentration of 3.0 g per liter of solution?
A) 30 g
B) 141 g
C) 5 g
D) 45 g
Answer:
If a radioactive element has a half-life of 704 million years, and the amount of parent
material remaining is one-eighth of the original amount, the specimen is about
A) 2,112,000,000 years old.
B) 1,408,000,000 years old.
C) 2,816,000,000 years old.
D) 3,520,000,000 years old.
Answer:
We are actually looking into the past when we look at
A) a distant star.
B) our physics book.
C) actually, both of these
D) none of these
Answer:
A friend says that changing electric and magnetic fields underlie the production of light.
A) agree with your friend
B) disagree with your friend
C) find a new friend
Answer:
What would the formula be for the following stick model?
A) C4H10
B) C3H3
C) C3H6
D) C3H8
E) C4H8
Answer:
Compared to the Sun’s convection zone, it is generally hotter in the
A) radiation zone.
B) photosphere.
C) core.
D) All of the above.
Answer: