TeachersFirst's Middle School Brain Twisters

Week of May 18, 2012

1.What natural phenomenon enables there to be palm trees in southern England? (10 points)

The jet stream
The Labrador current
The Gulf Stream
The continental shelf
The middle Atlantic Plate

2.Which is likely to have appeared last on Earth? (5 points)

Salamander
Mosquito
Clam
Eagle
Gibbon

3.The science lab floor measures 42 feet by 36 feet and has four 4 by 4 foot tables permanently anchored as "islands." To replace the flooring in the exposed areas, the school must buy tiles in boxes that cover 300 square feet. How many boxes must they buy? (20 points)

4.What sort of shape will you create if you graph the following set of coordinate pairs: (0,0) (1,-2) (2,-4) (3,-8) (4,-16) (5,-32) ? (10 points)

a curve that slopes up
a line that slopes down
a line that slopes up
a curve that slopes down
a circle

5.Point is to font as ... (10 points)

gross is to dozen
yard is to meter
millimeter is to small
liter is to pour
gram is to mass

6.Use estimation to decide which is greatest... (20 points)

The square root of 2 cubed
The square root of 9
The cube root of 27
The cube root of 60
2 squared

7.How many seats in the House of Representatives are up for election this year? (5 points)

all of them
one third of them
150
the same number as in the Senate
200

8.If a lemonade recipe calls for 1/4 cup of lemon juice per quart of water, how much lemon juice will you need to make a batch that uses three gallons of water? (5 points)

1 quart
4 cups
1.5 pints
2.5 cups
3.5 cups

9.Samantha's science fair project investigated laundry detergents. She tried three different detergents on each of stains made by grass, chocolate, dirt, and mustard. What was the dependent variable in her experiment? (10 points)

The brand of mustard
The type of washing machine
None of these
The results of each detergent on each stain
The amount of dirt

10.Which belongs to the group "fauna?" (5 points)

Galapagos
Gasoline
Gerbil
Geranium
Granite

Back