Dwayne’s Study Zombies

Here’s the question:

The earliest known use of cacao—the source of our modern day chocolate—has been pushed back more than 500 years, to somewhere between 1400 and 1100 B.C.E., thanks to new chemical analyses of residues extracted from pottery excavated at an archaeological site at Puerto Escondido in Honduras. The new evidence also indicates that, long before the flavor of the cacao seed (or bean) became popular, it was the sweet pulp of the chocolate fruit, used in making a fermented (5% alcohol) beverage, which first drew attention to the plant in the Americas.

The “new evidence” mentioned in the second sentence is…

1) A recipe for chocolate liquor

2) Chemical analyses of stuff from old pots

3) Sweet pulp of chocolate fruit (mmm….chocolate fruit…)

4) None of the above

See that “new evidence” phrase there? What’s it mean? That’s the real question… so I look at the sentence, and it says the evidence shows that people drank fermented chocolate fruit… mmmm… chocolate wine!! I bet everyone’d buy that…

Anyways, so I look at the answers. I gotta think all logically, like Curtis or someone. Which one of these things would show that people drank chocolate wine? D’oh! They all would… a recipe, or leftover stuff, or maybe they found some chocolate pulp? So, I gotta read again.

First, I think about the recipe. Nowhere does the paragraph say anything about finding a recipe! Whatever the answer is, it gotta be in the article!

Then, I think about the second thing… a chemical analysis, like with a mad scientist in his laboratory, no doubt. Talks about that in the first sentence… “thanks to new chemical analyses of residues extracted from pottery.” Then, in the second sentence, it says the new evidence ALSO says… so it must be the evidence they talked about before. Who knew? There’s like scientists, who go around figuring out what the icky stuff on the bottom of old pots is. Man, they’d like to see my kitchen.

Yeah, the answer’s gotta be B. Did you get it?

Dude, I’m so needin’ some chocolate, like, right now! I bet that aliens gave us chocolate. How do I know? Well, cuz it’s kewl, duh. And cuz you know how aliens liked to hang around with ancient people. I found this article about how ancient people ate chocolate…mmmm…chocolate….

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071119103540.htm

Here’s the first paragraph:

The earliest known use of cacao––the source of our modern day chocolate––has been pushed back more than 500 years, to somewhere between 1400 and 1100 B.C.E., thanks to new chemical analyses of residues extracted from pottery excavated at an archaeological site at Puerto Escondido in Honduras. The new evidence also indicates that, long before the flavor of the cacao seed (or bean) became popular, it was the sweet pulp of the chocolate fruit, used in making a fermented (5% alcohol) beverage, which first drew attention to the plant in the Americas.

Yeah, it’s all about chocolate, but isn’t that just the kind of thing that would be on the GED? That’s right, I said it! Chocolate covered GED! So I thought I’d make up a practice question… like this one…

The “new evidence” mentioned in the second sentence is…

1) A recipe for chocolate liquor

2) Chemical analyses of stuff from old pots

3) Sweet pulp of chocolate fruit (mmm….chocolate fruit…)

4) None of the above

What do you think? I’ll clue you in next time…now, I gotta get me some CHOCOLATE!!!1!!1!!!!111!

Did you figure out the answer to this question about lava lamps?

What would happen if Dwayne (that’s me!) made a new kind of lava lamp with a light on the top as well as one on the bottom?

A) When the lamp was on, the lava stuff would move twice as fast.

B) When the lamp was on, the lava stuff wouldn’t move at all.

C) When the lamp was on, the lava stuff would go to the top and stop.

D) The lava stuff would keep moving even when the lamp was off.

E) The lamp would overheat.

The answer is… drumroll please…… C! The lava would go to the top of the lamp, then stop. How come?

Well, as we figured out, the lava rises up because the lamp at the bottom get hotter, kind of like how a hot-air balloon rises because the air is hotter, and hotter stuff is lighter.

So, if there was a lamp on both top and bottom, the stuff would still get hot, and it would rise to the top… but it wouldn’t ever cool down, because the lamp at the top would keep it hot. So it would go up to the top and stay there!

Make sense to you? Ask me if you don’t get it. And I promise, next time I’ll talk about something new! Even though lava lamps are really kewl…

What does extraterrestrialpolation have to do with the GED test? Yeah, I know, the real word is “extrapolation.” But I like really long words. What “extrapolation” really means is taking things you know and seeing what you can figure out from them. So you make your knowledge bigger by like, expanding it into new things. And that helps a lot with GED preparation. Cuz that’s one of the things they want you to do on the GED.

So, last time, I told you how a lava lamp works. Basically, the light at the bottom makes the waxy stuff get hot. When it’s hotter, it’s less dense than the liquid, so it floats up. When it gets to the top, it cools down, gets more dense, and sinks down… makin’ kewl psychedelic lava lamps.

Here’s the extrapolation:

What would happen if Dwayne (that’s me!) made a new kind of lava lamp with a light on the top as well as one on the bottom?

A) When the lamp was on, the lava stuff would move twice as fast.

B) When the lamp was on, the lava stuff wouldn’t move at all.

C) When the lamp was on, the lava stuff would go to the top and stop.

D) The lava stuff would keep moving even when the lamp was off.

E) The lamp would overheat.

Hehehehe… I’m turning lava lamps into GED preparation! Good luck on this one! Let me know what you think…