Answers to AMA Member Challenge
July 2008
Who said, “It’s the first time I’ve really changed my career since I was 17 years old” in his last speech as a full-time employee of the company he co-founded over 30 years ago with Paul Allen?
- Larry Ellison
- Bill Gates
- H. Lee Scott, Jr.
- Sergey Brin
Correct answer: Bill Gates. Gates, who will work full-time at his charitable foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will stay on as Microsoft’s nonexecutive chairman. Steve Ballmer, CEO since 2000, will remain in that position.
2. What corporation’s punitive damages fine for the 1989 Valdez oil spill was just cut from $2.5 billion to $500 million by the Supreme Court?
- Chevron
- Exxon Mobil
- Sunoco
- Royal Dutch Shell
Correct answer: Exxon Mobil. The original punitive damage amount, $5 billion, had already been cut in half by a federal appeals court. According to the New York Times, Exxon asked the Supreme Court to reevaluate the $2.5 billion judgment, saying it already has spent $3.4 billion in response to the accident. The Valdez spill is the worst in U.S. history, dumping 11 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound.
3. Hope your kids aren’t too hungry. This Battle Creek-based cereal giant raised the price of Cocoa Krispies and Froot Loops in January, then shrunk their box sizes in June.
- Quaker Oats
- Nabisco
- Healthy Choice
- Kellogg
Correct answer: Kellogg. Kellogg shrunk boxes for five brands (Cocoa Krispies, Froot Loops, Apple Jacks, Corn Pops, and Honey Smacks) by an average of 2.4 ounces, with no additional price increase. Kellogg follows in the footsteps of rival General Mills, maker of Cheerios and Wheaties cereals, which downsized boxes about a year ago.
4. With oil prices soaring, struggling auto maker GM is reconsidering the fate of which gas-guzzling brand, originally designed for military use?
- Hummer
- Fiat
- Prius
- Cadillac
Correct answer: Hummer. GM, the largest U.S. automaker, has hired Citigroup to review the Hummer brand, and could decide to put it up for sale. Thanks to rising gas prices and Hummer’s fuel efficiency of only 9 to 15 miles per gallon, experts say the brand may be a tough sell.
5. Think fast: A new $133 million American supercomputer dubbed “Roadrunner” can process one thousand trillion calculations per second, a speed known as a what?
- Xnome
- Loganym
- Petaflop
- Megaquince
Correct answer: Petaflop. A “flop” is an acronym meaning floating-point-operations per second. The next supercomputing goal is the exaflop, which is a quintillion calculations per second. The Roadrunner is more than twice as fast as the previous fastest computer, the I.B.M. BlueGene/L.
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