Dwayne’s Study Zombies

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!

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?

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…

Hey, did anyone out there watch the 2010 Winter Olympics? Watching all those skiers and skaters made me wonder how come you can slide down snowy or icy surfaces so fast, but if you tried the same thing on grass or concrete, you wouldn’t slide as much. I mean, what makes ice so slippery? I know it has something to do with friction but I don’t really know what friction is, so I tried to look it up. But then I realized something. The internet has a LOT of information! There’s like over 25 MILLION results when I put the word “friction” into google.com. When I looked at the first one at Wikipedia, it said:

Friction is the force resisting the relative lateral (tangential) motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, or material elements in contact. It is usually subdivided into several varieties.

Already I’m like, WHOAH, what does THAT mean? I have no idea! That’s why sometimes I feel stupid, ’cause I read stuff on the internet when I just wanna find out a simple answer to a simple question like, “Why is ice slippery” and I get this sentence about relatives and ladders and tangerines. I don’t get it! (more…)

You know what I love? The fair! It’s got all those crazy rides that spin you all around, and up and down, and I feel like I’m gonna get sick, but I just keep riding them!! They’ve always got these deals going too where you can get a bracelet or something and ride all day long! I used to be able to ride on those spinning ones (the one at my fair was called the GRAVITRON!!) all day and night, but nowadays I can only ride them a couple of times, and then I gotta take a breather and go on a much more tame ride, like a roller coaster.

Check out this practice question I found about the GRAVITRON!

A man stands on a ride at an amusement park that spins around. As the ride spins faster, the man is pushed back against the outer wall and finds it very difficult to pull himself away from it.

Which statement best explains this event?

1. There is glue on the wall holding him on.

2. The ride is creating a magnetic force that pulls the man toward the metal in the walls.

3. The ride is creating a new center of gravity inside the walls.

4. The spinning of the ride creates a centrifugal force that pushes the man outward from the center.

5. The ride creates an optical illusion the makes the man think he is falling backward into the wall. (more…)

Hey dudes, it’s jacket time! Seriously, it’s cold out there!!! Sometimes I have to wear a thermal under shirt, two t-shirts, a small sweatshirt, a giant sweatshirt, AND a jacket when I got outside! Then I’m nice and toasty! It doesn’t snow where I live, but sometimes I go up to the mountains and snowboard! I’ve got serious snowboarding skillz! I do flips and jump off trees and buildings and even people! …ok, well I run into trees and buildings and people. But other than carving ice, there’s not much to do when it’s cold but FREEZE! I like the summer way better.

However, if it weren’t for the greenhouse effect, we’d all be ice statues! Check it out!!

(more…)

Dudes, I delivered pizza to this creepy government experiment family the other day. They were all wearin’ white shirts and jeans, and all of them had short brown hair. Like they were a bunch of clones! I was sweatin’ so hard by the time they paid me, I just knew they were gonna suck me into their clone vortex and spit me out to be just like one of them. No way, dude, I’d never wear a white shirt. I’d get pizza stains all over it in an instant! Man, all my shirts are serious tomato sauce magnets. Hey, I wonder if my shirts have been secretly altered by the government too… I think it’s time to buy some new shirts! (Maybe the ones with, like, cool fire designs all across the chest, so you wouldn’t even notice all the pizza stains!)

So, today’s GED Science problem has to do with creepy clones! Ok, so maybe not clones, but families that look alike.

Which of the following would provide the best evidence of a blood relation?

1.) The two people look alike.

2.) Matching fingerprints

3.) Similar interests

4.) Legal documentation stating a blood relation

5.) DNA analysis (more…)

Dudes! So, like, part of GED science is studying your own body… and health, and stuff like that. Like, did you know I’m allergic to peanuts? Seriously. Get those things away from me! I found a science article about peanut allergies, too… Some scientists did a study about kids allergic to peanuts. And guess what the solution is to peanut allergies that they found? PEANUTS!

Here’s how it works… the kids ate a little bit of peanuts every day, and their bodies sort of got used to dealing with them. They built up a tolerance for peanuts. Man, I wish I’d done that when I was little! But be careful, this article says that it’s just a study for now… and no one should do it without a doctor. You don’t want to set off your peanut allergies. No kidding! The article’s called “Children Can Complete Treatment For Peanut Allergies And Achieve Long-term Tolerance, Studies Suggest”

Here’s a GED Practice question from the article… First, read this paragraph from the article:

Duke and Arkansas Children’s Hospital began enrolling patients in studies five years ago to determine if incremental doses of peanut protein could change how the body’s immune system responds to its presence. The doses start as small as 1/1000 of a peanut. Eight to 10 months later, the children are ingesting the equivalent of up to 15 peanuts per day. The children stay on that daily therapy for several years and are monitored closely.

So, based on this study, what might a scientist hypothesize would be an effective treatment for an allergy to milk?

1) a regular daily dose of 1/1000 oz. of milk

2) a daily dose of milk, beginning at a very small quantity and slowly increasing

3) a daily dose of milk, beginning at the maximum tolerable quantity and slowly decreasing

4) a daily dose of 10 oz. of milk for 8 to 10 months

5) a small dose of milk administered at random intervals

So, what’d'ya think? Read more to find the answer… (more…)

Kewl! That’s totally the title of this article I found: “Virtual Smart Home Controlled By Your Thoughts” … sweet! I mean, when’s the last time my thoughts controled anything? The kewl thing about GED science, doodz, is that real science is doin’ all kindza kewl sci-fi type stuff. In REAL LIFE! Okay, so what’s it all about? (more…)