NewsTracker Answers for week of June 25, 2018

Q: Algeria turned off its internet nationwide during high school exams in a bid to tackle cheating. Where is Algeria?

Circle the area on this map


Q: The move follows widespread cheating in 2016, with questions leaked online before and during tests which help determine whether students can go to college. Algeria’s state universities are ...

A. Very expensive

B. Moderately priced

C. Tuition free


C. Algerian high school students who pass the baccalaureate exam can go to one of the nation’s public universities free of charge.


Q: Some human rights activists have called past internet shutdowns violations of civil rights. What eastern neighbor of Algeria suspended internet access to quell anti-government protests?

A. Libya

B. Mali

C. Mauritania

D. Morocco


A. Algeria is largest country in Africa by area, and it borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Tunisia to the northeast, Libya to the east, Niger to the southeast, Mali, Mauritania and the Western Sahara to the southwest and Morocco to the west. Libya and its eastern neighbor, Egypt, both censored the internet during the Arab Spring protests in 2011.


Q: What other nation has shut down internet service in an attempt to stop exam fraud?

A. Ethiopia

B. India

C. Syria

D. All of the above


D. One other nation, Iraq, also cut internet service to block students from cheating, and it is shutting it down again this month for two weeks of exams.


Q: In the 1970s, Algeria made school compulsory for children aged 6 to 15 years and has raised the literacy rate to about 80 percent. Children are taught in Arabic and what other language?

A. English

B. French

C. Italian

D. Spanish


B. Arabic is used as the language of instruction during the first nine years of schooling. From the third year, French is taught and it is also the language of instruction for science classes. France controlled Algeria from 1830 until 1962, when the Algerians gained independence after eight years of fighting.