A copy of the distribution of scores follows.Question Answer Comments
# 1 B at 1 atm the boundary curve slopes up and to the right - a positive slope
# 2 B the slope of the boundary between water and ice is negative....as pressure increases, ice melts at a lower temperature
# 3 A If the boundary is vertical then increasing pressure does not favor either water or ice.
# 4 A note that at y atm water boils at a temperature greater than 100
# 5 D mechanical weathering breaks up large particles and produces smaller particles with a greater total surface area
# 6 C of all of the common minerals quartz is the least likely to change chemically
# 7 C sand is a size term only - 1/16 to 2 mm in diameter
# 8 C feldspars are the most abundant mineral group in the continental crust and feldspars break down to form clays.... clays are the most abundant minerals in shales and mudstones
# 9 B see answer to question 8
# 10 A basalt and granite are rocks - not minerals
# 11 D a well sorted sediment consists of similar sized particles
# 12 B in shales the cleavages of the clays are lined up parallel to each other ... giving the rock its tendency to split into thin layers
# 13 A clastic means broken and clastic rocks contain particles that were broken away from the source and transported down slope tothe sink
# 14 C given time, feldspars and rock fragments will break down...arkoses and litharenites are enriched in these two components
# 15 D in general, the particles in a breccia have not been subjected to much transport - hence their angular shape
# 16 C with time, particles become rounded and spherical .... next time, look closely at the sand sized material that is accumulating at Galveston Beach
# 17 B compaction results when material is compressed.....recrystallization and cementation involve chemical mechanisms
# 18 D any rock can be the parent of a metamorphic rock -- including a metamorphic rock
# 19 C temperatures increase as depth within the Earth increases ..... material that is deeply buried will be subjected to an increasing temperature and pressure
# 20 A when an intrusive or extrusive event occurs the igneous body begins to cool thus heat flows from the igneous body into the body it is in contact with
# 21 A slate to phyllite to schist involves the increase in size of the clay minerals ... this occurs with increasing degree of regional metamorphis,
# 22 C quartz is very resistant to change and a quartz-rich sandstone is not likely to exhibit much change during regional metamorphism
# 23 B shales and mudstones are the most likely parents of slates
# 24 C in one half life half the number of parent atoms decay to daughter atoms .... one half life leaves 10,000 of A, two leave 5,000, and three leave 2,500....each half-life is 100,000 years
# 25 B early in the history of the Earth the amount of radioactive isotopes was greater than today ... hence more heat was generated in the past than today .....
# 26 A the Precambrian encompases time from about 4.5 billion years ago to about 560 million years ago - nearly 4 billion years
# 27 B the Jurassic is in the Mesozoic era
# 28 C remember Jurassic Park
# 29 C the Devonian period came long before the Permian period....if the section is right side up then unit D must be younger than unit E .... all of the other periods are younger than the Permina
# 30 C the sequence is fining upwards - this is a characteristic feature of transgressive sequences that form when sea level is rising or the land is subsiding
# 31 C we know that G intruded into unit F but we have no idea when since the only unit that G intrudeded is F .... G could be the youngest unit or it could be older than everything but F
# 32 B the older units were tilted and eroded before units B and A were laid down horizontally ....there is an angular relationship between the younger and older units
# 33 D gravity is a measure of the force between a body and the center of the Earth....gravity tends to pull things down - hence Newton and the apple
# 34 D plate boundaries are places where "things happen" .... energy is released, earthquakes occur, volcanoes form and erupt.....
# 35 C the deposits nearest the river bank tend to be coarses and these deposits thicken with time .... levees tend to keep the river within its banks and are a natural process that attempts to reduce flooding
# 36 A deltas form when a river deposits material in a body of water ...
# 37 D when water is poured on the beach sands some of it enters the open spaces present between the nearly spherical quartz grains
# 38 A if the pore spaces are not interconnected then the rock is impermeable
# 39 C the width, depth, discharge and velocity tend to increase down stream .... the gradient, profile, however, tends to flatten out downstream
# 40 A the water table separates the zone with some air in the pore spaces from the zone with all water in the pore spaces
# 41 C groundwater is only about 1% of the Earth's water supply but it excees the water stored in the atmosphere, biosphere and in lakes and rivers
# 42 B the water table is not a flat surface .... it is high under hills and low under valleys
# 43 C water closest to the well stem is pumped first....if the rate of pumping increases, water closest to the stem is depleated first....it takes longer from water further away to reach the well
# 44 A debris pushed by the front or nose of a glacier may remain when the glacier retreats ....
# 45 C if the Earth were a cube then the "spread" of energy would be the same independent of latitude .... the Earth is a sphere
# 46 C as the glacier begins to form and move it erodes the area in which it forms .... these bowls make great ski basins
# 47 C a 300 foot lowering sea level would put the Galveston beaches many miles offshore
# 48 B if the surface is highly reflective then more of the energy from the Sun will be reflected away from the Earth and not available for heating
# 49 D all of these statements about greenhouse gasses are true
# 50 A the Sun rises in the east ... when the sun rises in Houston it has not come up in California
The average grade was a 34.5 (69%):
Use the following scale to see how you are doing on just this first exam.
84 to 100 -- Very Good
70 to 83 - Good
58 to 69 - OK
50 to 57 - Not So Good