Do you know more about science than the average American?
The results of this nationwide science quiz may surprise you.
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In 2019 Pew Research Center did a survey of thousands of Americans titled What Americans Know About Science. Our cynical selves would typically cringe to see the results, but these actually aren’t bad. In fact, all but one question was usually answered correctly. So to test yourself, you’ve got some solid competition in your fellow Americans (if you are an American).
Substack does not offer me a snazzy quiz widget (there’s a poll widget but it wouldn’t show the answers) so we’ll just do this Old School. There are 11 questions, just write down your answer a-d for each.
Ready? Actually, I don’t care if you’re ready or not. Here we go:
Oil, natural gas and coal are examples of …
Fossil fuels
Biofuels
Geothermal resources
Renewable resources
A scientist is conducting a study to determine how well a new medication treats ear infections. The scientist tells the participants to put 10 drops in their infected ear each day. After two weeks, all participants' ear infections had healed. Which of the following changes to the design of this study would most improve the ability to test if the new medication effectively treats ear infections?
Create a second group of participants with ear infections who do not use any ear drops
Have participants put ear drops in both their infected ear and healthy ear
Have participants use ear drops for only one week
Create a second group of participants with ear infections who use 15 drops a day
Which of the following is an example of genetic engineering?
Growing a whole plant from a single cell
Attaching the root of one type of plant to the stem of another type of plant
Inserting a gene into plants that makes them resistant to insects
Finding the sequences of bases in plant DNA