Questions

1. ____________________ Americans went on disability during President Obama's first term.
a) 4 million
b) 1 million
c) 14 million
d) 41 million

2. The total number of American workers who are currently on disability today is ___________________.
a) 80 million
b) 1 million
c) 8.8 million
d) none; Americans not working are all on unemployment

3. Mexican drug cartels have recently begun sending some of their most trusted agents to live and work deep inside the U.S. – experts believe it is meant to tighten the cartels' grip on the world’s most lucrative ________________________ market and maximize profits.
a) farm workers
b) narcotics
c) college exchange student
d) landscaping

4. If not stopped, authorities say, the Mexican cartels’ move into the American interior could make it harder than ever to dislodge them, and pave the way for them to expand into other criminal enterprises such as:
a) Medicare fraud
b) wind or solar alternative energy companies
c) kidnapping-and-extortion rackets and money laundering
d) selling 32 oz. sodas in NYC

5. Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first and only woman prime minister died this week. The longest serving prime minister in the 20th century, she was known for all but:
a) growing the welfare state in Britain
b) her economic policies which became known as “Thatcherism”
c) privatizing various government owned agencies and companies
d) a focus on individual responsibility

6. As Prime Minister, Thatcher did all but:
a) stood with President Reagan in the face of communist Soviet aggression
b) stood up to and broke the miners union
c) sent British forces to the Falkland Islands after Argentina invaded
d) promoted a feminist initiative throughout Great Britain

7. In late March, a company in North Dakota broke ground on the first new refinery to be built in the U.S. since:
a) 1916
b) 1976
c) 1996
d) 2006

8. Thanks to the Bakken shale formation, North Dakota produces more crude oil than any state except Texas. But because the state has only one refinery, it imports more than half of the roughly 53,000 barrels of diesel consumed each day by:
a) rigs that extract shale oil from the ground, and trucks and trains that transport it to refineries on the Gulf
b) tourists visiting the state
c) electric car charging stations which are located along the major highways of North Dakota
d) all of the above

9. Experiments funded by The National Science Foundation to test the use of robots in schools will cost $10 million over 5 years. The hoped-for outcomes of the research include all but:
a) students will learn the correct answers by allowing them to point out a robot's mistakes
b) students will learn how to build a robot
c) students will learn by teaching a robot
d) students will learn more in a subject they don't enjoy

10. The National Science Foundation is an agency of the federal government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. It has an annual budget of:
a) $7 million
b) $70 million
c) $700 million
d) $7 billion