Questions

1.  Which of the following did superstorm Sandy NOT do to the electrical grid in the New York/New Jersey area:
a)  the water surge flooded underground substations
b)  cause customers' electricity bills to double overnight
c)  strong winds knocked out trees and overhead power lines
d)  cause some transformers to explode

2.  Which of the following is not part of the process to send power from a power plant to individual homes?
a)  power from transmission lines is sent into transformers, machines that bring down the voltage of the electricity
b)  electricity is sent from transformers into small distribution lines, which transport that electricity into our homes
c)  power is pushed, at very high voltage, from the power plant across transmission lines
d)  electricity is sent from overhead cables [or transmission lines] to buried ones

3.  Republican Sen. Tom Coburn's "Wastebook" is an annual list of 100 federal spending decisions made by Congress and federal agencies each year that the Senator highlights as:
a)  projects that are not funded by the government but should be
b)  a practical use of taxpayer money
c)  wasting taxpayer dollars
d)  projects that must receive funding immediately

4.  Sen. Coburn's 2012 Wastebook highlights a total of $18.9 billion in government spending. Which of the following is not a real project listed in Sen. Coburn's book?
a)  part of a $325,000 grant used to build a robotic squirrel to test whether it could scare a real snake
b)  $100,000 to send a three-member American comedy troupe on a tour of India
c)  $10 million in reimbursements to soldiers who purchased protective gear using their own money
d)  a $1.5 million grant to the University of Utah to study building a better computer gaming joystick

5.  There are 538 electoral college votes in total.  They are based on:
a)  the total number of members of the House, Senate, and 3 electors given to the District of Columbia
b)  this is a random number chosen by the Electoral College committee
c)  the total number of Congress members in the House of Representatives
d)  the total number of Representative and Senators in Congress

6.  In the U.S. presidential election, a candidate needs __________ of the electoral college votes to win the presidency.
a)  538
b)  269
c)  60%
d)  270

7.  Republican Pat McCrory's victory in ______________________ gubernatorial race is significant because is it the first time that state has elected a Republican governor since 1988.
a)  West Virginia
b)  Indiana
c)  North Dakota
d)  North Carolina

8.  Mr. McCrory's win gave the GOP _____________________ governorships, the highest number for either party in 12 years.
a)  26
b)  30
c)  33
d)  57

9.  Veterans Day was originally called __________________ because it was a day set aside to honor veterans of World War I - it commemorates the time before the peace treaty was signed when a temporary cessation of hostilities between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect - on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
a)  Surrender Day
b)  Armistice Day
c)  Doughboy Day
d)  The War to End All Wars Day

10. The first president to issue a Veterans Day Proclamation was:
a)  Abraham Lincoln
b)  Barack Obama
c)  Dwight D. Eisenhower  
d)  John F. Kennedy