Answer the following questions on this sheet or on a separate sheet of paper. Read each question carefully and thoroughly to make sure you understand what is being asked. These questions are designed to test your ability to think like a geologist and not necessarily to test your knowledge of geologic principles.
1. While walking to school one day, you observe several pieces of a distinctive pink-colored granite exposed in several panels of the concrete sidewalk on which you are walking. Which statement best describes the relationship between the granite and the concrete?
a. The concrete is older than the granite.
b. The concrete and the granite are the same age.
c. All concrete is made from pieces of granite cemented together.
d. The granite is older than the concrete.
2. Just before crossing Stillwell Avenue to enter school one morning, you observe a construction crew digging a pit with a large backhoe. You notice a white colored mass come rolling out of one of the piles of white sand dumped by the backhoe. Upon closer inspection, you identify this mass as a seashell with the words "Greetings from Coney Island" printed on it. Which statement best explains this observation?
a. The seashell does not belong here.
b. The seashell burrowed into and is therefore younger than the sand.
c. The white sand and seashell association is natural and suggests perhaps that in the past, this part of Brooklyn was covered by seawater.
d. Beach sand mixed with seashells was transported here from Coney Island and dumped before the paving of Stillwell Avenue.
3. A rubbish contractor has been accused of illegal dumping into a pit at a vacant lot off of Atlantic Avenue. The contractor, who owns the lot, claims that he only parks his trucks there overnight. He moreover insists that he has not dumped any garbage there since 1980 when his dumping permit for the site expired. The NYC Department of Environmental Protection inspected the site and retrieved a sample of the pit's contents at a depth of 10 feet for analysis. They identified the following: a. a cover of Time magazine with the portrait of President Nixon, b. a front page from a copy of the New York Times with the partial headline "Man Walks on Moon", c. a hood ornament from a Mercedes-Benz automobile, and d. a Mozart CD. Based on this information, explain whether or not there is sufficient evidence to indict the contractor for illegal dumping.
4. The average person's fingernails grow at a rate of about 2.5 centimeters per year. Danielle is an average 16-year-old and very proud of her finely manicured nails. However, she wishes her nails could be as long as her cousin Sharon's which are 25 centimeters long (and very stylish, she says). If Danielle's nails are already 5.0 centimeters long, how long will she have to wait until her nails are the length that Sharon's are now?
