Questions

PLEASE NOTE:  This is the last Friday's News Quiz of the school year.  Regular posting of articles and quizzes will resume at the end of the summer.

1. The group USMemorialDay and others suggest moving the observance of Memorial Day to May 30th, from the last Monday in May:
a) because the weather is usually better on that day
b) to give people the opportunity to spend the day barbecuing with their families
c) so the day will be observed on its original date, as it was intended, to honor those who died in military service
d) so that all Americans will know the date of Memorial Day

2. Suggestions for how Americans should observe Memorial Day include all but:
a) organizing barbecues for veterans
b) flying the U.S. Flag at half-staff until noon
c) participating in a “National Moment of Remembrance“
d) visiting cemeteries and placing flags or flowers on the graves of our fallen heroes

3. Over the weekend, opponents successfully blocked multiple attempts in the Senate to extend the expiring law known as __________________, which authorizes the National Security Agency's bulk collection of telephone data.
a) the Patriot Act
b) the Government Surveillance Act
c) the Privacy Invasion Authorization Act
d) the Terrorism Detection and Prevention Act

4. People who support the NSA's phone surveillance program do so because they feel it is essential to national security; people who oppose it do so because:
a) they think it gives the government an unfair advantage over terrorists
b) it is too invasive
c) they don’t like President Obama or former President Bush, both supporters of the program
d) it only captures the phone records of terrorists

5. After ISIS recently captured Ramadi in Iraq and expanded its reach in Syria, the Obama administration:
a) shifted its emphasis in its description of the fight, casting it as a long and difficult battle
b) announced plans to ask the Iranian government to take the lead in defeating ISIS in the Middle East
c) announced the redeployment of U.S. troops to Iraq by the end of the summer
d) said through White House press secretary Josh Ernest, “you can’t win them all”

6. Following the latest ISIS victories, who said, “Two years from now, the situation on the ground may have changed and it may require some change in the way that strategy is carried out. But that’s something that we’ll leave to the next president”?
a) Hillary Clinton, former secretary of state and Democratic presidential candidate
b) John Bolton, former US ambassador to the UN
c) Vice President Joe Biden
d) Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary

7. The Internal Revenue Service announced Tuesday that a “sophisticated” organized crime syndicate had targeted one of its online tools and accessed the personal and financial data of over _________________ taxpayers.
a) 1,000
b) 10,000
c) 100,000
d) 100,000,000

8. Some critics say that the IRS should have ________________, arguing that if hackers were able to figure out how to trick the IRS’ systems into thinking they were legitimate users, the IRS should have too.
a) shut down the IRS website
b) infiltrated the criminals' network
c) taken preventative measures when it had the opportunity
d) hired the group ‘Anonymous’ to secure the data

9. Mount St. Helens erupted in May 1980. According to environmental scientist Jim Gawel of University of Washington Tacoma, people were surprised that:
a) Mount St. Helens actually erupted
b) they were starting to see signs of life within a year
c) the ecosystem did not recover more quickly
d) Spirit Lake was not restored to its exact form before the eruption

10. Following the destruction caused by the eruption, a new ecosystem emerged.  All but which one of the following are true:
a) the hundreds of square miles of century-old forests destroyed by the eruption have come back
b) a whole host of plants, insects, birds and small mammals appeared that weren’t there before the eruption
c) Spirit Lake recovered, different than it was before
d) Spirit Lake was restored to way it was before the eruption