This speed reading quiz will give you practice in skimming a text to see what information it contains. Now that students use computers for much of their research, skimming has become a most important skill. A student who uses a search tool carefully, for example to access a library database or to access the internet via Google, will be presented with a number of pages or articles that may or may not contain the information she is looking for. She will certainly not have time to read through all of these \'hits\'. Instead, she should skim through the text, looking at the first and last sentences in each paragraph a little more carefully. In this way she can determine whether or not the text contains the information she wants.
If it does, she can then read the text more slowly, making notes or highlighting in the recommended way.
#Does this text explain the difference between skimming and scanning?^No.~Yes.@Does this text contain a link to a page with advice about note-taking?^Yes.~No.'); q('Since moles live in underground tunnels, which they burrow, or dig, themselves, they have no need to see well. Their eyes are small, and a layer of fur and skin droops over them. In other ways, too, the mole\'s body is suited for burrowing. A mole\'s large, strong front feet can dig, push, or scoop soil with ease. With these feet, the mole clears its tunnel of earth, pushing the soil up to the surface, leaving it in heaps called molehills. Though a mole seldom eats plants, its tunnels ruin gardens. Moles may weigh as little as 25 grams and as much as 150 grams, and eat their own weight in food every day. The mole\'s diet consists of insects and worms. A rainy night may bring a mole out of its tunnel nest to feast on the earthworms the rain has brought to the surface. To protect itself from the damp earth underground, the mole has a thick, silky coat of fur.
#Does the text contain information on how moles make tunnels?^Yes.~No.@Which part of the mole\'s body is not mentioned in the text?^ears~eyes~feet~fur@Is there information in the text about what and how much moles eat everyday?^Yes.~No, only information about what they eat.~No, only information about how much they eat.'); q('More people get tooth decay, or cavities, than any other disease. Almost everyone in the world has a cavity sometime during his life. How, then, do you get cavities? After you eat, tiny bits of food are left in your teeth. Bacteria that live on your teeth cause these bits of food to form an acid. This acid starts to eat away at the enamel, the outside covering of your teeth. This eating-away then goes deeper, to the dentin, the layer beneath the enamel and creates a hole, or a cavity. If your tooth is not filled quickly, the cavity goes even deeper and reaches the soft pulp layer, which contains blood vessels and nerves. A cavity this deep can become infected. Not only is this a very painful toothache, but the infection can be carried to other parts of your body.
Therefore, to avoid this pain and infection, you should always brush your teeth very carefully several times a day to remove the food bits from your teeth.
#Does this text explain how a dentist fills a cavity in a tooth?^No.~Yes.@Does this text advise how to avoid getting cavities?^Yes.~No.'); q('Ivory comes from the tusks of elephants and from mastodons and mammoths, ancient ancestors of our modern-day elephant. Mastodons lived until the end of the last Ice Age - about 8,000 years ago. Many mammoths lived in Siberia, and for a long time, most of the ivory came from there. Men dug up the skeletons of long-dead mammoths preserved in the frozen ground. This ivory is called dead ivory, and it is not of such a high quality as live ivory. Live ivory, of course, is more scarce. The best live ivory comes from the tusks of the African elephant. These tusks usually measure six to eight feet long, taller than the average man. Because of the great demand for ivory, many African elephants were killed. The elephant population in Africa became much reduced from this senseless, greedy slaughter. Now, laws have been passed to protect the African elephant. Also, the increasing use of plastics may replace many of the former uses of ivory.
#Does this text say what ivory is used for?^No.~Yes.@Does this text report on the relationship of the demand for ivory on the elephant population?^Yes.~No.@Dead ivory (ivory from mammoths) has a better quality than live ivory (ivory gained from elephants that have just been killed).^False~True~There is no information in the text about this.'); q('Mammals are one of the classes of animals. Scientists have classified, or divided, all animals into groupings according to the ways in which they are alike. All mammals have one characteristic that no other animal has - mammals are the only animals whose females produce milk to feed their young. The word mammal comes from the Latin word mamma, which means "breast." Other characteristics distinguish mammals from most other classes of animals. Mammals give birth to live young; they have a backbone; they are warm-blooded; they have a well-developed brain; they breathe air; and their bodies are covered with hair. There are many different kinds of mammals, but they all have these characteristics. Human beings are mammals. And so are whales, lions, cows, kangaroos, dogs, gorillas, hippopotamuses, armadillos, dolphins, aardvarks, elephants, and bats.
#Which animal class or classes are described in this text?^Mammals only.~Mammals and reptiles.~Reptiles only.~Reptiles and birds.~Birds only.@Does the text give information about the derivation of the word mammal?^Yes.~No.@Which information about mammals is not included in the text?^Movement~Reproduction~Feeding~Respiration~Skin covering'); q('Although the sound of a cat\' s purr is familiar to all, exactly how the cat does it still remains a mystery. Scientists do know, however, that cats have two sets of vocal chords in their throat, one above the other. Each set produces different sounds. Many scientists believe that the lower vocal chords produce the "meows," and the upper vocal chords produce the" growls" and "purrs." All these sounds are produced by vibrations due to increased activity in major blood vessels in the area of the vocal chords. The function of the purr is also unknown. Although cats purr when they are contented, some cats also make a different purring noise when they are in pain. Some cats purr so loudly that they sound like machines, while others purr silently, and only vibrations can be felt.
#Does the text give information about how cats purr?^Yes.~No.@Why do cats purr?^It is not known why cats purr.~The text has no information about the reasons for cats purring.~Cats purr when they are hungry.'); q('The caterpillars of the silkworm moth are the remarkable creatures responsible for making the threads from which man manufactures shiny, beautiful silk cloth. Today, almost all silk is cultivated on silk farms in Japan, China; and other countries of the Far East, where mulberry trees grow, since, it is the leaves of this tree which are fed to the caterpillars. The large white female silkworm moth lays her eggs (from 300 to 500) on special paper set out by the silk farmer. These eggs are examined and tested carefully to be certain that the worms inside are not diseased. Then they are put into an incubator for about 20 days, where the warmth causes them to hatch. When the tiny silkworm hatches, it is fed every two or three hours, night and day, for four to five weeks, with fresh mulberry leaves. At the end of that time, the silkworm is fully grown and stops eating. It is now ready to spin its outer wrapping, a cocoon. The worm first attaches itself onto a twig or piece of straw the farmer has placed near it. It does this by giving off a fluid that is manufactured in its glands. As the fluid hits the air, it hardens into silk threads, which the worm winds around and around the twig or straw. The threads are held together by a gum, which the worm also gives off. The worm continues winding its thread, now enclosing its own body inside a cocoon.
#Does the text say mention the countries where most silk is made?^Yes.~No.@Which information is not contained in the text?^How long silkworm moths live.~What \'silkworm\' caterpillars eat.~How the silkworm makes silk threads.@Does the text give information about how farmers turn the threads into silk cloth?^No.~Yes.'); q('When you are asleep and relaxed, and breathing through your mouth rather than through your nose, the air coming out causes your soft palate - the tissue at the back and top of your mouth - to flutter back and forth. This fluttering, or vibration, makes a sound called a snore. Often this vibration causes the cheeks, lips, and nostrils to vibrate as well, causing an even louder snore. Although many ways have been tried to stop snoring - from tying a bandage from the chin to the top of the head to keep the mouth closed to actually removing part of the soft palate, no one has found a sure-fire method. However, some people claim that if you sleep on your side rather than on your back, you are less likely to snore. Nobody knows why, but men snore more than women and children.
#Does the text suggest ways to prevent snoring?^Yes.~No.@Does the text say who is more likely to snore?^Yes, men.~Yes, women.~Yes, old people.~Yes, children.~No.@Does the text contain information about the dangers of snoring?^No.~Yes.'); q('Although some parrots have been known to learn to speak as many. as 50 words, the fact is that parrots are excellent mimics. When they speak they are really only mimicking words and do not understand what they are saying. Don\'t be fooled by the parrot who shrieks \"Hello\" when you come in - it might say the same thing when you leave! And the parrot who says \"Polly wants a cracker\" is not telling you it is hungry. With careful training, parrots can be trained to speak words, sing, and whistle. But they are not speaking in the sense we know it. They are just making a sound they once heard - a sound which has no connection to their inner feeling. They are not using speech to communicate. While parrots are good mimics, other birds, such as the myna bird and the crow, can be taught human sounds too. Interestingly, many other birds who do not imitate human sounds can imitate the sounds of other birds. Mockingbirds got their name because of their mimicry powers. Some baby birds, raised with species of birds different from their own, can make sounds just like those other birds. The calls and songs and different sound patterns of birds in the wild serve another purpose - communication. There are danger calls, alarm calls, food calls, mating calls, and territorial calls.
#Does the text contain information about parrots that can speak?^Yes. parrots that speak do not understand what they are \'saying\'.~Yes, parrots that speak understand what they are saying.~No.@Which bird is not mentioned in the text?^eagle~crow~myna bird~mocking bird@Does the text give information about why birds make sounds?^Yes.~No.'); q('As your blood travels throughout your body .... , it follows a definite route through tubes called blood vessels. There are three main kinds of blood vessels: arteries, veins, and capillaries. When the blood is pumped out of your heart, it goes into your largest arteries, then moves into the smaller arteries, and into the capillaries. Capillaries are like bridges between your arteries and veins. They are such tiny blood vessels that you can\'t see them without a microscope. But these capillaries serve a very important purpose. They are like "traders," for it is through their thin walls that blood "trades," or exchanges food and oxygen for the waste materials that these body cells do not need. Blood travels from the capillaries into tiny veins and then into larger and larger veins. Finally, the largest veins take the blood back to your heart. The round trip that blood makes is a continuous one which goes on and on while a person is alive. Each round trip from the heart, through the body, and back to the heart again takes less than one minute. And this round trip is made thousands of times each day.
#Does the text contain information about the route taken by the blood when it is pumped out of the heart?^Yes, blood goes from the arteries into the capillaries.~Yes, blood goes from the arteries into the veins.~Yes, blood goes from the capillaries into the arteries.~No.@Does the text contain information about the function of the capillaries^Yes.~No.');