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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Antheleme Brillat-Savarin noted, "Tell me what you _______ and I will tell you what you are."
(a) Grow.
(b) Know.
(c) Eat.
(d) Believe.

2. ____________ were the ones who seized land from the Irish, causing them to have meager plots of arable land on which to grow.
(a) English Celts.
(b) Roundheads.
(c) Greeks.
(d) Spanish.

3. Factors restricting the growth of marijuana that indoor gardeners were able to control include the following except _______.
(a) Disease.
(b) Light.
(c) Heat.
(d) Nutrients.

4. Peruvian legend has it that _____ are associated with the discovery of quinine through eating the bark of the cinchona tree.
(a) Toucans.
(b) Jaguars.
(c) Macaws.
(d) Pumas.

5. What sort of potato was developed by the Incan people and just one of the many potatoes which used to grow?
(a) Striped.
(b) Blue.
(c) Gold.
(d) Spotted.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to the book, the human penchant for drugs has allowed people to trip the brain's ______ system washing the brain in 'feel good' chemicals.

2. ________, Pollan says, is the theme which unifies the questions being raised in agricultural biotechnology.

3. What is a good place to experiment and a place to try out new plants and techniques without having to risk a lot?

4. What needs to be kept artificially high in the clean rooms in order to keep other microbes out?

5. According to the book, _____ are the only people on Earth who do not have a practice of using psychoactive plants to change consciousness.

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Pollan believe the experience of the sublime has to do with the experience of nature?

2. What is the most important thing to an animal's survival, according to the discussion of plants?

3. What are some of the reasons why potatoes were not very popular in Europe around the late 1500s?

4. Why were the Irish open to farming the potato in order to provide food for themselves?

5. How does one begin to grow potatoes, according to Pollan in the book?

6. What were the dangers of the potato, according to Malthus during the time of the rise of the potato?

7. Describe the experience Pollan had when the police almost found his large marijuana plants in his backyard?

8. What was going on at the time of Pollan's visit to Amsterdam for research for this book?

9. Describe the NewLeaf potatoes that Pollan took in order to grow at his garden.

10. What does Pollan begin to realize after the powerful storm that ruined a part of the famous gardens of Versailles?

(see the answer keys)

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