QUES: The Great Basin and Columbia Plateau (the Intermontane Plateaus) are arid or semiarid regions that lie in the rain shadow of the Cascades and Sierra Nevada. Precipitation averages less than 15 inches (38 cm). The Southwest is a hot desert, with temperatures exceeding 100 °F (37.8 °C) for several weeks at a time in summer. The Southwest and the Great Basin are also affected by the monsoon from the Gulf of California from July to September, which brings localized but often severe thunderstorms to the region.
South-central United States is a hot desert with temperatures exceeding what?

ANS: unanswerable

QUES: The single most important piece of Byzantine Christian mosaic art in the East is the Madaba Map, made between 542 and 570 as the floor of the church of Saint George at Madaba, Jordan. It was rediscovered in 1894. The Madaba Map is the oldest surviving cartographic depiction of the Holy Land. It depicts an area from Lebanon in the north to the Nile Delta in the south, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Eastern Desert. The largest and most detailed element of the topographic depiction is Jerusalem, at the center of the map. The map is enriched with many naturalistic features, like animals, fishing boats, bridges and palm trees
When was the Madaba Map rediscovered? 

ANS: 1894

QUES: Undergraduate tuition for the 2012/13 school year was $61,240; this includes the basic tuition of $43,380, fees (health $200, etc.), room and board of $13,329 (less if commuting), books and supplies $1,842, personal expenses $1,890, transportation cost of $400. Northwestern awards financial aid solely on the basis of need through loans, work-study, grants, and scholarships. The University processed in excess of $472 million in financial aid for the 2009–2010 academic year. This included $265 million in institutional funds, with the remainder coming from federal and state governments and private organizations and individuals. Northwestern scholarship programs for undergraduate students support needy students from a variety of income and backgrounds. Approximately 44 percent of the June 2010 graduates had received federal and/or private loans for their undergraduate education, graduating with an average debt of $17,200.
What percentage of the June 2010 graduates received federal or private loans?

ANS: Approximately 44

QUES: The roots of hard rock can be traced back to the 1950s, particularly electric blues, which laid the foundations for key elements such as a rough declamatory vocal style, heavy guitar riffs, string-bending blues-scale guitar solos, strong beat, thick riff-laden texture, and posturing performances. Electric blues guitarists began experimenting with hard rock elements such as driving rhythms, distorted guitar solos and power chords in the 1950s, evident in the work of Memphis blues guitarists such as Joe Hill Louis, Willie Johnson, and particularly Pat Hare, who captured a "grittier, nastier, more ferocious electric guitar sound" on records such as James Cotton's "Cotton Crop Blues" (1954). Other antecedents include Link Wray's instrumental "Rumble" in 1958, and the surf rock instrumentals of Dick Dale, such as "Let's Go Trippin'" (1961) and "Misirlou" (1962).
What type of music known as the roots of hard rock was started in the 1940s?

ANS:
unanswerable