QUES: Avicenna's astronomical writings had some influence on later writers, although in general his work could be considered less developed than Alhazen or Al-Biruni. One important feature of his writing is that he considers mathematical astronomy as a separate discipline to astrology. He criticized Aristotle's view of the stars receiving their light from the Sun, stating that the stars are self-luminous, and believed that the planets are also self-luminous. He claimed to have observed Venus as a spot on the Sun. This is possible, as there was a transit on May 24, 1032, but Avicenna did not give the date of his observation, and modern scholars have questioned whether he could have observed the transit from his location at that time; he may have mistaken a sunspot for Venus. He used his transit observation to help establish that Venus was, at least sometimes, below the Sun in Ptolemaic cosmology, i.e. the sphere of Venus comes before the sphere of the Sun when moving out from the Earth in the prevailing geocentric model.

Where did Avicenna think Venus was in relation to the sun?
What is the answer?
ANS: below the Sun
QUES: The exodus of Salvadorans was a result of both economic and political problems. The largest immigration wave occurred as a result of the Salvadoran Civil War in the 1980s, in which 2030% of El Salvador's population emigrated. About 50%, or up to 500,000 of those who escaped headed to the United States, which was already home to over 10,000 Salvadorans, making Salvadorans Americans the fourth-largest Hispanic and Latino American group, after the Mexican-American majority, stateside Puerto Ricans, and Cubans.

How many Salvadorans came to the US?
What is the answer?
ANS: unanswerable
QUES: Later the emphasis was on classical studies, dominated by Latin and Ancient History, and, for boys with sufficient ability, Classical Greek. From the latter part of the 19th century this curriculum has changed and broadened: for example, there are now more than 100 students of Chinese, which is a non-curriculum course. In the 1970s, there was just one school computer, in a small room attached to the science buildings. It used paper tape to store programs. Today, all boys must have laptop computers, and the school fibre-optic network connects all classrooms and all boys' bedrooms to the internet.

Is Chinese a required or non-curriculum course?
What is the answer?
ANS:
non-curriculum