GED Sample Questions ›› Science

GED Sample Questions : Science

Science

Every day you breathe about 16,000 quarts of air. Almost everywhere in New York state, but especially in heavily populated areas, the air which circulates through your lungs and supplies oxygen to your bloodstream is splotched with unhealthy substances—carbon black, fly ash, soot, silica, metal dust, and other organic and nonorganic pollutants.

Air contaminants from industries, incinerators, power plants, automobiles, airplanes, and backyard leaf-and-debris burners stack the odds against us by contributing to staggering death and disease tolls. Medical research shows that air pollution can cause lung cancer. It increases suffering from pneumonia, allergies, asthma, and the common cold, as well as aggravating cases of chronic bronchitis and emphysema.

High concentrations of air pollution—each lasting only a few days—were blamed for sharply increased death rates in Belgium’s Meuse Valley in 1930; in Donora, Pa. in 1948; in London in 1952; and in New York City in 1963 and 1966. Air pollution kills.

Air pollution adversely affects all living things, stunting and killing flowers, shrubs, trees, and crops. Spinach, for example, can no longer be grown as an agricultural crop in the Los Angeles basin because of the city’s smog problems. Crop damage means higher food prices, amplifying our already inflationary grocery-budget blues.

Pollutants also damage property and materials, soil clothing, discolor paint and even corrode stone, marble, and metal. Again the result can be measured in dollars and cents, in inconvenience and in higher cleaning, and maintenance bills for homeowners, businesses, and government alike.

Following are some GED science sample questions on this passage:

7. Which city has a smog problem that prevents spinach from being grown?
   1. Meuse Valley
   2. Los Angeles
   3. New York
   4. San Francisco
   5. Moscow

   Answer: B

8. Which is NOT a medical effect of air pollution?
   1. The common cold
   2. Asthma
   3. Allergies
   4. Polio
   5. Pneumonia

   Answer: D

9. The organ of the body most affected by air pollution is the
   1. brain
   2. thyroid
   3. lungs
   4. intestine
   5. stomach

   Answer: C