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California

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  1. San Jose is the second ___ city in California, after Los Angeles.
    a. larger
    b. large
    c. largest
  2. George Lucas has ___ a digital movie studio in Marin County north of San Francisco called "Skywalker Ranch."
    a. building
    b. built
    c. build
  3. The Golden Gate inlet into San Francisco Bay is so narrow and covered with fog, European explorers sailed past it for many years without ___ the bay.
    a. discovering
    b. discovered
    c. discover
  4. Two species of giant Sequoia redwood trees are ___ in California; one in the Sierra Nevada mountains and one along the Pacific coast.
    a. find
    b. finding
    c. found
  5. Yosemite National Park is so popular, the Park Service is planning to require that visitors take an electric bus instead of ___ own cars into the valley to reduce smog and congestion.
    a. there
    b. their
    c. they're
  6. The towns of Santa Cruz and Huntington Beach have been ___ for many years over which is the real "Surf City USA."
    a. argued
    b. arguing
    c. argue
  7. The neoprene wet suit was ___ by a resident of Santa Cruz because the water there is cold but the surfing is good.
    a. invented
    b. invent
    c. inventing
  8. Chinese immigrants were ___ to build the Southern Pacific railroad across the Sierra Nevada mountains because the European workers were undisciplined.
    a. hire
    b. hiring
    c. hired
  9. The San Gabriel mountains east of Los Angeles are the ___ growing mountain range in the world, rising about five centimeters a year.
    a. fastest
    b. faster
    c. fast
  10. Forest ___ and earthquakes are as natural to California as tornadoes and snowstorms are to the Midwestern United States.
    a. fire
    b. fires
    c. fired
  11. The tectonic plate Los Angeles sits on is ___ north towards San Francisco at the rate of two centimeters a year.
    a. move
    b. moving
    c. mover
  12. Eighty percent of the venture capital available in the United States for ___ startup companies comes from investors in the Silicon Valley town of Menlo Park.
    a. financing
    b. finance
    c. finaced
  13. Los Angeles ___ a system of aquaducts to bring snowmelt from the mountains of northern California for its water supply.
    a. uses
    b. using
    c. used
  14. Silicon Valley ___ near San Francisco. Silicone Valley is near Hollywood.
    a. is
    b. was
    c. can
  15. Kenny Roberts has his own private road-racing track ___ his back yard near Carmel, California, home of the Laguna Seca raceway.
    a. on
    b. in
    c. into
  16. The Monterey Aquarium has a 1 million gallon aquarium tank, thanks to a Japanese company that ___ the world's largest and thickest window pane.
    a. building
    b. builder
    c. built
  17. If California were a country, its economy would be the eighth ___ in the world.
    a. large
    b. largest
    c. larger
  18. In over 500 suicides at the Golden Gate Bridge since it opened, nobody has ever ___ facing west, towards the Pacific Ocean. Everybody jumps facing the city of San Francisco.
    a. jump
    b. jumped
    c. jumping
  19. The city of Los Angeles is ___ billions of dollars to re-build a mass-transit subway and train system that General Motors dismantled earlier this century.
    a. spent
    b. spending
    c. spend
  20. The artichoke, which is ___ in great abundance near Monterey, is a member of the thistle family.
    a. grew
    b. grown
    c. grew
  21. Every time it is on the ballot, a plan to split California into two or more states gains a ___ percentage of the vote.
    a. higher
    b. highest
    c. high
  22. Much of the gold ___ in California during the Gold Rush of the 1850s financed the Union Army in the Civil War.
    a. mine
    b. mined
    c. mining
Copyright (C) 1997 by Joel Ingulsrud (joel@thirdculture.com)
This quiz is part of the HTML-Only Self-Study Quizzes which is part of Activities for ESL Students, a project by The Internet TESL Journal.