Which are the primary causes of acidic deposition? radon gas and fuel wood smoke soil dust and sand carbon monoxide and formaldehyde tropospheric ozone sulfur and nitrogen oxides?

The correct answer is Sulfur and Nitrogen oxides

Acid deposition is the precipitation of acidic components in the form of rain. This takes place when the hydrogen ion concentrations increase in rain due to the release of certain pollutants that yield acidic products upon dissolution in water.

Oxides of nitrogen and sulfur are the major reasons for acidic deposition. Nitrogen oxides released from automobile exhausts when present in the atmosphere react with water to produce nitric and nitrous acids which are deposited with rain. Similarly, sulfur oxides released from volcanoes and rotting vegetation also dissolve in water to form the respective acids that are deposited as acid rains.

1. the question asks the most appropriate, which seems to rule out "all of the above." your choice appears to be the correct one.

2. the protocol described is good for identifying correlation, but not cause and effect. for cause/effect, you need to devise a protocol that will assign the treatment (or not) to groups that have essentially the same "demographics" with respect to all the other variables. your choice regarding control group seems appropriate. random assignment of treatment (choice d) may be appropriate also. (i think you can argue that b and d are just different descriptions of the same method.)

3. d will randomize the birds, but may not guarantee there are 10 in each group. e will do both, so seems the better choice.

comment on question 2

based on the problem statement, it seems clear that confident, attentive drivers are more likely to use daytime running lights. so, the protocol might need to be devised in such a way that the lights would be turned on or off without the driver's knowledge. (an attentive driver will figure it out.) assigning a confident, attentive driver to a group required to drive without running lights might mess with his/her confidence and attentiveness. you don't want your experiment to do that. (nor do you want the experiment to subject a driver to greater risk of accident as a consequence of driving without running lights.) experiments involving human safety are always problematic.