A Ton of Crap (61 page)

THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR

The Treaty of Paris
In 1898, the war officially ended with the Treaty of Paris. The Spanish-American War lasted a total of six months. Under the treaty, Guam and Puerto Rico fell under American control, Cuba was granted its independence, and for $20 million, America got control of the Philippines. Due to the Platt Amendment, the United States was granted a military base at Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay.

JANE AUSTEN

Reactions Then and Now
When Austen’s books first came out, they were well received. Her work received published reviews praising her realism and narrative qualities. In the nineteenth century, as Victorian and Romantic literature appeared, Austen’s work became less popular, and those that still liked her considered themselves the elite. When James Edward Austen-Leigh’s
A Memoir of Jane Austen
came out, the work of Jane Austen was reintroduced and once again grew in popularity. By the twentieth century, Austen’s work became a major focus of academic studies, as well as a source for media adaptations (the movie
Clueless
is a modernization of
Emma
).

MODERN ALGEBRA

Universal Algebra
Universal algebra studies the actual algebraic structures, and not the models of algebraic structures. In universal algebra, an algebraic structure is a set, known as
A
, and there are a collection of operations performed on
A
. An
n
-ary operation takes
n
elements of the structure, or
A
, and returns a single element of the structure. Once operations have been specified, the structure can be limited even further into axioms.

WEATHER

Weather Forecasting
By understanding how air masses react, one is able to predict how the weather will turn out. One way of doing this is by looking at fronts. Two basic types of front are cold fronts and warm fronts. A cold front is a mass of cold air moving into a mass of warm air. As the cold air contracts, it becomes heavier and pushes below the warm air. When warm air moves into a mass of cold air, the warm air replaces the cold air.

HUNGARIAN

Useful Hungarian Phrases
Here are some helpful phrases to use when traveling to Hungary:

Good morning.
Jó reggelt kívánok.

Good afternoon.
Jó napot kívánok.
(also used as “hello”)

Good evening.
Jó estét kívánok.

Good night.
Jó éjszakát.

Thank you.
Köszönöm.

I don’t understand.
Nem értem.

I can’t speak Hungarian.
Nem beszélek magyarul.

Excuse me.
Elnézést.

Where’s the toilet?
Hol van a mosdó?

Goodbye.
Szia.

1. How did yellow journalism portray the explosion of the USS
   Maine
   ?
   

   1. The Yellow Newspaper was the first to publish a story on it.
      
   2. The story was sensationalized and blame was placed on the Spanish.
      
   3. Newspapers said the explosion was caused by an accident on the ship.
      
   4. None of the above.
      

2. As a result of the Treaty of Paris, America gained control of:
   

   1. Guam
      
   2. Puerto Rico
      
   3. Spain
      
   4. A and B
      

3. Jane Austen maintained anonymity throughout her writing career. In her first book,
   Sense and Sensibility
   , she used the pseudonym:
   

   1. J. A.
      
   2. A Woman
      
   3. A Lady
      
   4. Anonymous
      

4. Which of the following was NOT a theme found in Jane Austen’s work?
   

   1. Realism
      
   2. Great displays of emotions
      
   3. Humor
      
   4. Social commentary
      

5. Another name for modern
   algebra is:
   

   1. Linear algebra
      
   2. Abstract algebra
      
   3. Elementary algebra
      
   4. Algebra II
      

6. What rule states if
   a
   and
   b
   are elements in
   G
   , then
   ab
   , the product, is also in
   G
   ?
   

   1. The property of closure
      
   2. The inverse property
      
   3. The identity property
      
   4. Associativity
      

7. Which of the following accurately describes the steps in the water cycle?
   

   1. Evaporation, condensation, precipitation
      
   2. Condensation, evaporation, precipitation
      
   3. Evaporation, precipitation, condensation
      
   4. Precipitation, condensation, evaporation
      

8. Which of the following is NOT a group clouds are classified into?
   

   1. Cirrus
      
   2. Stratus
      
   3. Cumulonimbus
      
   4. Alto
      

9. Which Hungarian dialect is most significantly different?
   

   1. Northeast Hungarian
      
   2. Székely
      
   3. West Hungarian
      
   4. Csángó
      

10. In Hungarian, how many
    different ways are there to express levels of politeness?
    

    1. 2
       
    2. 3
       
    3. 4
       
    4. 9
       

ANSWER KEY: b, d, c, b, b, a, a, c, d, c

HISTORY:
The War of 1812
What Was the War of 1812?, Invasion of Canada, Surrender of Detroit, Hartford Convention, Treaty of Ghent, The Battle of
New Orleans

LANGUAGE ARTS:
Debating
Know Your Facts, Causality, Regression to the Mean, Innuendo, Clarity, Emotionalism

MATH:
Curves
What Is a Curve?, Conics, Circles, Ellipses, Parabolas, Hyperbolas

SCIENCE:
Global Warming
Greenhouse Gases, The Greenhouse Effect, The Role of the Industrial Revolution, Impact of Global Warming, The Clean Air Act, Fact
or Fiction?

FOREIGN LANGUAGE:
Korean
The Origins, The Korean Writing System, Vocabulary, Dialects, Differences Between North Korean and South Korean, Useful Korean Phrases

THE WAR OF 1812

What Was the War of 1812?
The War of 1812 began in 1812 and lasted until 1815. The British, who were in a war with France, wanted to restrict trade between the newly formed United States of America and France. This was considered illegal by the Americans. Following years of Britain’s restrictions and attacks on American ships, as well as their funding Native Americans’ attacks on American settlements, war was declared on Britain and their Canadian colonies. This new war with Britain reaffirmed the stance that the United States had to be independent from Britain.

DEBATING

Know Your Facts
One of the very first steps in becoming a great debater is understanding your facts. The source of the material can help or hurt your argument. If a source is taken from a newspaper or magazine, make sure the information is not formed on some sort of bias. It is always a good idea to check your information with multiple sources that have different backgrounds (for example, international newspapers present a very different perspective from local newspapers).

CURVES

What Is a Curve?
A curve is similar to a line in that it is a continuously moving point, but it does not have to be straight. A curve starts out like a straight line then begins to deform in a smooth and continuous formation. The shape the curve takes on is the result of a particular equation. Closed curves repeat and open curves have infinite length.

GLOBAL WARMING

Greenhouse Gases
The Earth’s atmosphere is made up of many different gases. Greenhouse gases are particularly important because they let visible light through while not letting heat through. These gases absorb the extreme energy and heat coming from infrared light. The major greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are carbon dioxide, water vapor, nitrous oxide, methane, and ozone. Without the greenhouse gases, life would not be able to survive on Earth.

KOREAN

The Origins
The Korean language is a Ural-Altaic language. Ural-Altaic languages originated in northern Asia and include the Turkic, Mongol, Finnish, Hungarian, and Manchu languages. Despite grammatical similarities, a relationship between Korean and Japanese has not been discovered yet. From 108 b.c. to a.d. 313, the Chinese occupied northern Korea, and by the fifth century, Classical Chinese was the written language and much of the Chinese language was borrowed.

THE WAR OF 1812

Invasion of Canada
When war was declared against the British, the War Hawks (members of Congress who wanted to go to war with Britain and the Native Americans) set their sights on an attack of the British in Canada. The American forces divided into segments at Niagara, Lake Champlain, and Detroit. On July 12, 1812, the Americans invaded. The divided American troops were no match for the British, and fighting was pushed into American territory.