NIE account

Newspapers In Education
Contact NIE

















Print this page  
Sum Up the News

Sum Up the News

Program Content for May 21, 2013

 

Vocabulary:

 

1. In an arithmetic series with a common difference of d, what will be the difference between the Nth term and the 1st term?

 

               A. d

               B. (N – 1) * d

               C. N * d

               D. (N + 1) * d

 

 

 

2. If a savings account compounds its interest monthly and the equation that relates the value of the account to the month is an exponential equation with a growth factor of 1.01, what is the account's effective annual interest rate?

 

               A. 1.0%

               B. 12.0%

               C. 12.7%

               D. 112.0%

 

 

3. A rectangle with a length of 10 units and a width of 8 units is bisected by one of its diagonals. The two triangles that are formed each a have a perimeter of  ___________.

 

               A. 24 units

               B. 18 + 2√41 units

               C.  36 units

               D. 18 + 3√38 units

 

 

 

4. A circle with a radius of 5 units is divided into 5 identical sectors, and one sector is removed.  What is the perimeter of the remaining shape?

 

               A. 10 + 2π units

               B. 10π units

               C. 10 + 8π units

               D. 20π units

 

 

 

 

Based on the article titled “Spacecraft’s telescope fails, hobbling hunt for planets” on page A2 of the Thursday, May 16th, Seattle Times

 

 

5. Kepler was launched in March of 2009 and had a planned mission lifespan of 3 years at a cost of $600 million. Last year it was decided that Kepler should be kept operational, at a cost of $20 million per year. Which of the following equations express the total cost for the Kepler mission in millions of dollars, Y, if it continues for another X months from now?

 

               A. Y = 600X+ 20

               B. Y = 1.67X + 577

               C. Y = 20(X + 1) + 600

               D. Y = 1.67X + 623

 

 

6.  Kepler detects planets by noting the decrease in light that occurs when an object passes in front of a star. Though there are 150,000 stars in Kepler's field of view, only 2/3rds of them are main-sequence stars and thus likely to have surviving planets.  The mission assumes that only 0.5% of the star systems will have planets in orbits properly aligned so that the planets will pass between their star and Kepler. The mission planners expect that there are an average of 1.5 planets in each star system's habitable zone, at a suitable distance from their stars that water could exist in liquid state. How many planets in habitable zones do the mission planners expect that Kepler would be able to find, given enough time?

 

               A. 333 plants

               B. 500 planets

               C. 750 planets

               D. 1688 planets

 

 

 

7. Though, both follow roughly the same 585 million mile elliptical path around the sun, Kepler is orbiting slightly slower than the Earth. Four years after its launch, Kepler is 40 million miles behind Earth in their orbit. How many days does it take for Kepler to make one full orbit of the sun?

 

               A. 359 days

               B. 362 days

               C. 365 days

               D. 372 days

 

 

 

Based on the article titled “Dirty beaches make sick oceans, says group” on page A18 of the Sunday, May 19th, Seattle Times

 

8.  The Ocean's Conservancy's annual cleanup organized 550,000 people worldwide in an effort to clean up the coastlines of the world. 10 million pounds of trash were picked up from 17,719 miles of coast. On average, how many feet of coastline had to be cleaned up in order to collect 1 ton of trash?

 

               A. 3.5 feet

               B. 1,490 feet

               C. 7,808 feet

               D. 18,711 feet

 

 

 

 

 

9. Examine the table titled "That's a lot of trash" on page A18. If you added Virginia to the states listed then the mean amount of trash collected per state would rise to 241,436 pounds. Approximately how many pounds of trash were collected in Virginia?

 

               A. 214,000

               B. 250,000

               C. 455,000

               D. 492,000

 

 

 

 

 

10. In Washington state, 534 volunteers picked up trash and debris. They gathered it from along 13.7 miles of coastline. If the volunteers typically worked in teams of 2, then what was the average number of feet of coastline that each team covered?

 

               A. 135 feet

               B. 271 feet

               C. 415 feet

               D. 542 feet

 

 

  

Based on the article titled “Payday lenders skirt military law” on page D1 of the Sunday, May 19th, Seattle Times

 

11. Levon Tyler borrowed $1,600 for 32 months under a repayment plan that would have cost him a total of $17,228. If Tyler's title loan had followed the spirit of the law and charged a maximum of 36% annul interest after fees, how much in interest would Levon Tyler have paid after six months if he had only been paying the interest accrued each month? (Assume that the interest is compounded monthly.)

Exponential equation: AT = A0 * (1 + R/12)T; Where A0 = amount at time 0, AT = amount after T months, R = annual interest rate, T = months

 

               A. $310

               B. $576

               C. $1,910

               D. $8,524

 

 

 

 

12.  Tyler had an option to pay back his loan in just 1 month under a "Summer Fun" plan. The effective annual interest would then have been 110%. How much would Tyler have had to pay back in 1 month to take advantage of the "Summer Fun" option?

 

               A. $147

               B. $1,747

               C. $1,760

               D. $3,360

 

 

 

13.  Tyler's loan was for 32 months and if he'd made the maximum payment each month on time it would have charged him an effective annual interest rate of 192%. Monthly loan payments, M, can be calculated using the formula: M = P *  eq \f (R(1 + R)N, (1 + R)N - 1) , where P is the initial amount of the loan, R is the monthly interest rate, and N is the number of months of the loan. After 32 months, what was the total amount that Tyler would have paid on his loan at this interest rate?

 

               A. $258.24

               B. $8,263.68

               C. $9,111.51

               D. $184,831.35

 

14. Another soldier took out an installment loan of $2,475 for 14 months at a nominal annual interest rate of 43%, but the loan required him to purchase insurance. The insurance costs raised the effective annual interest rate to 80%. After 14 months, what was the total cost of adding insurance to the loan?

 

               A. $278

               B. $695

               C. $1,157

               D. $3,886

 

 

 Sum Up the News is posted to the Web on Tuesdays. Please share the NIE program with other teachers. To sign-up for the electronic edition of the newspaper please call 206/652-6290 or toll-free 1-888/775-2655.

Copyright © 2013 The Seattle Times Company


Answers

Answers are found in the educator e-mail, register today.


Looking for additional programs that integrate the newspaper? Check out the NIE Web site @ www.seattletimes.com/nie.


HOME | ABOUT NIE | EDUCATORS | ELEMENTARY
MIDDLE SCHOOL | HIGH SCHOOL | COLLEGE | PARENTS
Copyright © 2013 The Seattle Times Company
Privacy statement





Register Now for Elementary, Middle School and High School Programs!