sample questions
Multiple Choice
Identify the letter of the choice that best completes the statement or answers the question.
____
____
____
____
____
____
____
1. What do ozone, nitrous oxide, methane, carbon dioxide, and chlorofluorocarbons have in common?
a. they are essential gases for sustaining plant life
b. they are gases released by volcanoes
c. they are all greenhouse gases
d. they are all gases found in bubbles in glacial ice
e. they are all industrial refrigerants
2. Which of the following countries refused to sign the Kyoto Treaty (1997) that required reduction of
greenhouse-gas production?
a. China
b. USA
c. Russia
d. Japan
e. Canada
3. The dollar loss, in the USA, from natural disasters increased significantly in the 1990s. What is the most
probable explanation for this?
a. more large earthquakes
b. increased population density
c. inflation
d. El Niño derived storms
e. bad engineering practice
4. Most of the rocks of the earth's crust are made up of which of the following mineral groups?
a. silicates
b. oxides
c. carbonates
d. tungstates
e. vanadates
5. Which property of minerals is variable and therefore the least reliable as a clue in identifying a mineral type?
a. color
b. cleavage
c. hardness
d. crystal form
e. chemical composition
6. In addition to particles, what other material can be found in sedimentary rocks?
a. Inorganic chemical precipitates
b. fossils (e.g. shell fragments)
c. biogenic chemical precipitates
d. lithified plant debris
e. all of the above
7. Which of the following is a type of plate boundary where new sea floor is formed?
a. divergent
b. convergent
c. emergent
d. passive
e. transform
____
8. What essential line of evidence in the 1960's helped to confirm the motion of the continents?
a. the puzzle piece-like fit of the edges of continents
b. fossil plants
c. studies of the earth's magnetic field
d. fossil animals
e. glacial patterns
____ 9. What force is thought to be an important cause plate tectonic motion?
a. earth tides
b. earthquakes
c. thermal convection currents
d. shear strain
e. volcanic eruptions
____ 10. Reverse, normal, and strike-slip all refer to types of ...
a. earthquakes
b. faults
c. tectonic plates
d. plays in football
e. none of the foregoing
sample questions
Answer Section
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
ANS:
ANS:
ANS:
ANS:
ANS:
ANS:
ANS:
ANS:
ANS:
ANS:
C
B
B
A
A
E
A
C
C
B