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This speed reading exercise will test how quickly you can scan a text. You usually scan when you want to find one or two small pieces of information. Scanning is a recommended reading method when you need to answer short, simple questions in a textbook or teacher worksheet. A history question, for example, might be: In which year did Russian dictator Joseph Stalin die? To find the answer you simply need to scan the text for dates and the name Stalin. You should quickly be able to find out that he died in 1953. You certainly do not need to read every word of the text to find such an answer.

An important modern research skill is the ability to scan the information returned when searching in Google. If you type the two words giraffe and pregnancy into the input box and hit enter, Google will return all the hits with these two words shown in bold. The first two hits were as follows:

Scanning Google\'s hits page will often very quickly and easily tell you what you need to know. In this case that the giraffe is pregnant for 15 months.

#What is the title of the text?^There is no title.~Twentieth century Russian dictators.~The reproductive cycle of the giraffe.@In which year did Joseph Stalin die?^1953~1952~1951~1954@How long is the female giraffe pregnant?^15 months~9 months~2 years~5 months'); q('

When you feel hot or cold, you are actually feeling the temperature of your blood. Since you are considered a warm-blooded animal (along with birds and other mammals), your body maintains an average temperature of 98.6° Fahrenheit (37.0° Celsius), no matter what the temperature is around you. Each species of warm-blooded animals has its own normal body temperature. Your normal body temperature is maintained by a part of your brain called the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus, along with controlling hunger and thirst, is actually a "temperature center," which receives messages from nerves in your skin and deep in your body. It regulates the temperature of your blood by burning food to generate body heat when the air outside is cold, and cools your blood when the temperature outside is too hot. Shivering and other physical activity also generate body heat in cold weather, while sweating and panting cools you off in hot weather. So whenever there is a change in the temperature of your blood, your body makes some adjustment to get it back to normal. Cold-blooded animals (all those except mammals and birds), on the other hand, do not have this built-in brain control over their body temperature and must resort to other means. Reptiles, for example, crawl into the sun to warm up and seek the shade when they are hot. Some fish increase the action of their muscles to generate body heat. Your body temperature does vary during the day. It is lowest in the morning, rises in the late afternoon, and falls again while you sleep!

#What part of your brain controls your body temperature?^hypothalamus~hypotenuse~hypothermia~hypothesis@At what time of day is your body temperature usually at its highest?^in the afternoon~in the morning~at night'); q('

The camel is well suited to its life on the desert. It is one of the few animals which can go without water for fairly long periods of time. Exactly how long depends on several factors: the temperature, the kind of work the camel is doing, and the food it is eating. A camel in the hot desert, for example, needs water every 8-10 days. At that time, it may drink 5 gallons a day. But in cooler weather, it can go for much longer periods without water. The availability of plants for the camel to eat is also a factor, since some have more water in them than others. There are several reasons camels can go for so long without drinking. Compared to other animals, and people too, camels lose very little moisture from sweating. Camels can get much hotter than other animals before they start losing moisture. Their temperature cap go up and down a range of 11 degrees Fahrenheit without endangering the animal\'s health, whereas in humans, a change of two or three degrees can be a sign of illness.

#How often does the camel need to drink water in the hot desert?^8-10 days~2-3 days~15-20 days~2-3 months@Why do camels not need to drink as often as other mammals?^Because they don\'t sweat so much.~Because their blood is thinner~Because they use less energy.~Because they can store water in their hump.'); q('

Astronomers have been studying the stars for centuries and noting how they look at different stages of their existence. From these studies, they can make their predictions about the sun. They believe that in 5 billion years the sun will shrink, or contract. This contraction will increase the temperature at the center, and so increase the rate at which the sun will change the hydrogen into helium-a process which will give off more energy. This energy will expand the outer edges of the sun 30-40 million miles and even touch its closest. planet, Mercury, burning it up. At this point, the sun will be a giant red star, which will make Earth too hot for life to exist.

Once the sun\'s energy is used up, the force of gravity will cause it to collapse or shrink. When it is the same size as Earth, it will become what astronomers call a white dwarf, and will shine with a hot, white light. Billions of years later, this white dwarf will have used up all of its energy and lost all of its heat. Then it will become a black dwarf and cool down and contract, leaving all the surrounding planets cold and dark. Eventually the sun might become a collapsed star, called a black hole, and disappear!

#What do astronomers think will happen to the Sun 5 billion years from now?^It will get smaller.~It will get bigger.~It will explode.~It will get colder.@What is the name for a star when it shrinks to the size of a planet?^White Dwarf~Black Hole~Red Giant~Blue Moon'); q('

While geologists disagree as to exactly how diamonds are formed, they do agree that diamonds are formed entirely of carbon and that great heat and pressure were needed millions of years ago for that carbon to change into diamonds. This heat and pressure were believed to have existed in molten rock far below the earth\'s surface where volcanoes created these conditions.

The one thing everyone agrees on, geologists and diamond users alike, is that diamonds are the hardest and one of the most valuable substances man has ever known. Not only are diamonds used in jewelry (about 20% of all the diamonds mined), but they are more widely used in industry - to cut very hard metal, as tips of drill bits in mining, for transistors and other electronic equipment.

#What are diamonds made of?^carbon~titanium~krypton~cobalt~crystal@What percentage of diamonds are not used in jewelry?^80%~20%~100%~60%'); q('

It is not the size of the brain that makes one person brilliant and another backward, for most adults have the same size brain - about three pounds. Rather, it is the way the brain develops. Your brain stores information from your past experiences, helping you to remember, learn, and think. But people differ in how much they remember, how quickly they learn, and how well they think. Much of this depends on the capacity for: mental growth you inherit from your parents and on your environment, or surroundings. An example of this is Kim Dung Yong, a Korean boy who spoke four languages and did complicated mathematical problems before he was five years old. His parents are both university professors. But this does not mean that every university professor will have such a genius for a child. It simply means that this boy inherited a great capacity for learning from his parents and that he was exposed to languages and mathematics when he was very young.

#How heavy is the average adult brain?^3 pounds~2 pounds~4 pounds~1 pound@How many languages could Kim Dung-Yong speak before the age of 5?^4~3~5~2'); q('

While the male mosquito is content to live on juices he gets from plants; the female is not. She gets her nourishment from the blood of people and animals. The female mosquito has a sharp beak which she uses to prick human or animal skin. Then she pokes a hollow tube from her mouth into the hole and sucks out one or two drops of blood. Ordinarily, when the skin is broken, as with a pinprick, the blood begins to clot. But a liquid in the mosquito\'s mouth prevents that clotting. This liquid, which most people and animals are allergic to, is left under the skin; causing the skin to swell and itch.

#Which mosquitoes drink blood?^females~males~both males and females~neither males nor females@When the mosquito makes a hole in the human skin, the blood does not start to clot as it normally would when the skin is broken. What stops the blood clotting so that the mosquito can drink it?^a liquid produced in the mosquito\'s mouth~a chemical produced in the mosquito\'s stomach~a sound produced by the rapid beating of the mosquito\'s wings~a chemical produced by the skin\'s reaction to being broken'); q('

A camera has a diaphragm - an opening that gets bigger or smaller to let in the right amount of light for a clear picture. In your eye, the iris does the same thing. The iris is a thin layer of tissue at the front of your eyeball. A camera has a lens that focuses the light into a clear picture. Your eye also has a lens to focus the light.

In a camera, the light forms a picture on the film. In your eyes, the picture is formed on the retina - the inner layer of your eyeball at the back of your eye. Because light rays bend in the eye and in a camera, the picture is upside down on both the film and the retina. But in the eye, the brain changes the picture to a right-side-up image, and in the camera, when the film is processed, it is simply held right-side up.

#Which part of the eye can increase or decrease in size to regulate the amount of light that enters?^iris~pupil~cornea~lens~retina@Which part of a camera is equivalent to the eye\'s iris?^diaphragm~shutter~lens~flash'); q('

The Reichstag fire was a pivotal event in the establishment of Nazi Germany. At 21:15 on the night of February 27, 1933, a Berlin fire station received an alarm call that the Reichstag building, the assembly location of the German Parliament, was ablaze. The fire seemed to have been started in several places, and by the time the police and firemen arrived the main Chamber of Deputies was in flames. Looking for clues, the police quickly found Marinus van der Lubbe, shirtless, inside the building. Van der Lubbe was a Dutch insurrectionist council communist and unemployed bricklayer who had recently arrived in Germany. Hitler used this as evidence that the communists were plotting against his government. That night Van der Lubbe and 4000 Communist leaders were arrested. Hitler forced President Hindenburg to pass an emergency decree suspending all articles that guaranteed freedom and liberty. Hitler\'s police were then allowed to seize property and take people without any sort of trial. The death penalty was introduced again for many crimes and concentration camps were set up. The Nazis\' twelve year terror over their opponents had started.



[This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Reichstag fire".]#On what day was the Reichstag (the German parliament buiding) burned down?^February 27, 1933~February 17, 1933~February 27, 1913~February 27, 1393@What nationality was Marinus van der Lubbe, whom the Nazi accused of starting the fire?^Dutch~Danish~German~Belgian@Who was President of Germany at the time of the fire?^Hindenburg~Brandenburg~van der Lubbe~Hitler'); q('

The graphic below shows the different types of English vocabulary, color-coded plus examples. In particular, it shows the situation (everyday or academic) in which the types of vocabulary are most likely to be used:


Graphic by Paul Shoebottom. Read the source page of the graphic.

#What kind of vocabulary is the expression to have a pee?^euphemism~academic~neutral~phrasal verb@Which of the following groups of words or phrases are typical subject-specific words?^photosynthesis, moraine, denominator~kids, cops, cool~to rain cats and dogs, a piece of cake~think, large, slowly');