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Science
Literature
More Literature
Writing
Math
100
They are found everywhere and they come in different shapes and sizes: What is the simplest known form of life?
What is bacteria
100
What novel read by Breakthrough’s eighth-graders is described as “A controversial tale of friendship and tragedy during the Great Depression”?
What is Of Mice and Men
100
Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, read by Breakthrough’s eighth-graders, tells the story of a kid growing up on what tribe’s reservation—namesake of the second-largest city in the state of Washington?
What is Spokane
100
It’s also a word for an item you might find while fishing: What’s the word for something important to use at the beginning of an essay?
What is hook
100
Fill in the BLANKS: “PEMDAS” is a handy acronym when determining the BLANK of BLANK.
What is order of operations
200
They get their nutrients from dead matter: Mold and yeast are among what type of organisms?
What is fungi
200
Breakthrough’s ninth-graders read what 1959 play, the first Broadway production written by an African-American woman?
What is A Raisin in the Sun
200
Chew on This, a book read by ninth-grade Breakthrough scholars, is a rather alarming examination of what industry, which enjoyed $200 billion in U.S. revenue in 2015?
What is fast food
200
What’s the name for the type of essay whose purpose is to explain or inform—not, as you might assume, to expose?
What is expository
200
Spell the answer correctly: What historical figure is associated with the mathematical relation “a squared + b squared = c squared”?
What is Pythagoras
300
Person to person, hands to food, food to hands, and animals to people are the primary ways that BLANKable diseases are spread.
What is communicable
300
According to the title of a short story analyzed by Breakthrough’s ninth-graders, humans are the most dangerous what?
What is game
300
“O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; it is the green-ey'd monster, which doth mock the meat it feeds on”: So wrote Shakespeare in which play, read by Breakthrough’s ninth-graders?
What is Othello
300
It’s also a word associated with mirrors: What’s the name for the final part of an ideally structured essay?
What is reflection
300
The mnemonic acronym SOHCAHTOA comes in handy in which branch of mathematics?
What is trigonometry
400
The USA uses more per capita than any other country, but the state of California just finished five years of having too little of it. Name the natural resource.
What is water
400
Seventh-grade Breakthrough scholars read a novella about Esperanza Cordero, a girl coming of age in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago. What fruit appears in the book’s title?
What is mango (The House on Mango Street)
400
Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, read by Breakthrough’s ninth-graders, takes place in this country:
What is Nigeria
400
Expository, narrative, persuasive, response to text: Match the four types of writing with their definitions: (a) to explain or inform about a topic, (b) to convince the reader of a position, (c) to explain something using evidence, (d) to entertain the reader with a story.
What is (a) expository, (b)persuasive, (c) response to text, (d) narrative
400
y = a(1 + r)x is the formula to calculate exponential growth of a quantity. Conversely, y = a(1 – r)x is the formula to calculate exponential what of a quantity?
What is decay
500
It’s often expressed as grams of the substance per liter of water, at a given temperature: We’re talking about a substance’s BLANKity.
What is solubility
500
Eighth-grade Breakthrough scholars read a book with the subtitle The Race to Build and Steal the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon. What four letters make up the book’s primary title?
What is bomb
500
What civil-rights pioneer is the subject of Phillip Hoose’s novel read by Breakthrough’s seventh-graders?
What is Claudette Colvin
500
Running spellcheck is never enough: A good way to correct errors in your writing is to remember the acronym CUPS. What do the first three letters in CUPS stand for? (Yes, the S stands for “Spelling.”)
What is capitalization, usage, punctuation
500
Given g(x) = -3x + 7, g(4) = -5. This is an example of what type of notation?
What is function