Test your basic knowledge |

AP Environmental Science

Subjects : science, ap
Instructions:
  • Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
  • If you are not ready to take this test, you can study here.
  • Match each statement with the correct term.
  • Don't refresh. All questions and answers are randomly picked and ordered every time you load a test.

This is a study tool. The 3 wrong answers for each question are randomly chosen from answers to other questions. So, you might find at times the answers obvious, but you will see it re-enforces your understanding as you take the test each time.
1. An introduced - normative species.






2. Radioactive wastes that produce low levels of ionizing radiation.






3. A bloom of dinoflagellates that causes reddish discoloration of coastal ocean waters. Certain dinoflagellates of the genus Gonyamfox produce toxins that kill fish and contaminate shellfish.






4. The removal of select trees in an area; this leaves the majority of the habitat in place and has less of an impact on the ecosystem.






5. Any noise that causes stress or has the potential to damage human health.






6. Biotic and abiotic natural ecosystems.






7. The place where two plates abut each other.






8. Energy at rest - or stored energy.






9. The process in green plants and certain other organisms by which carbohydrates are synthesized from carbon dioxide and water using light as an energy source. Most forms of photosynthesis release oxygen as a byproduct.






10. Is equal to the number of deaths per 1 -000 members of the population in a year.






11. Ozone that exists in the trophosphere.






12. The more or less constant winds blowing in horizontal directions over the Earth's surface - as part of Hadley cells.






13. Land that's fit to be cultivated.






14. The accumulation of a substance - such as a toxic chemical - in various tissues of a living organism.






15. Bacteria or fungi that absorb nutrients from nonliving organic matter like plant material - the wastes of living organisms - and corpses. They convert these materials into inorganic forms.






16. Any process that breaks rock down into smaller pieces without changing the chemistry of the rock; typically wind and water.






17. One that has never been cut; these forests have not been seriously disturbed for several hundred years.






18. The management or regulation of a resource so that its use does not exceed the capacity of the resource to regenerate itself.






19. A plate boundary where two plates are moving toward each other.






20. The dosage level of a toxin at which a negative effect occurs.






21. Can consist of hazardous waste - industrial solid waste - or municipal waste. Many types of solid waste provide a threat to human health and the environment.






22. Pollution that does not have a specific point of release - open -loop recycling -when materials are reused to form new products.






23. Using strategies to reduce the amount of risk (the degree of likelihood that a person will become ill upon exposure to a toxin or pathogen).






24. Change in the genetic composition of a population during successive generations as a result of natural selection acting on the genetic variation among individuals and resulting in the development of new species.






25. Says that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; it can only be transferred and transformed.






26. Any compound that releases hydrogen ions when dissolved in water. Also - a water solution that contains a surplus of hydrogen ions.






27. When companies are allowed to buy permits that allow them a certain amount of discharge of substances into certain environmental outlets. If they can reduce their amount of discharge - they are allowed to sell the remaining portion of their permit to






28. The structure obtained if we organize the amount of energy contained in producers and consumers in an ecosystem by kilocalories per square meter - from largest to smallest.






29. The right - as to fishing or to the use of a riverbed - of one who owns riparian land (the land adjacent to a river or stream).






30. A severe tropical cyclone originating in the equatorial regions of the Atlantic Ocean or Caribbean Sea or eastern regions of the Pacific Ocean - traveling north - northwest - or northeast from its point of origin - and usually involving heavy rains.






31. The maximum population size that can be supported by the available resources in a region.






32. The cultivation of a single crop on a farm or in a region or country; a single - homogeneous culture without diversity or dissension.






33. The result of vibrations (often due to plate movements) deep in the Earth that release energy. They often occur as two plates slide past one another at a transform boundary.






34. When populations are well below the size dictated by the carrying capacity of the region they live in - they will grow exponentially - but as they approach the carrying capacity - their growth rate will decrease and the size of the population will ev






35. The gaseous mass or envelope surrounding a celestial body - especially the one surrounding the Earth - which is retained by the celestial body's gravitational field.






36. Organisms that consume secondary consumers or other tertiary consumers.






37. Drilling a hole in the ground that's below the water table to hold waste.






38. When photochemical smog - NOx compounds - VOCs - and ozone combine to form smog with a brownish hue.






39. A symbiotic relationship in which both species benefit.






40. In tectonic plates - the site at which an oceanic plate is sliding under a continental plate.






41. Formed from populations of different species occupying the same geographic area.






42. A usually triangular alluvial deposit at the mouth of a river.






43. Says that the entropy (disorder) of the universe is increasing. One corollary of the Second Law of thermodynamics is the concept that - in most energy transformations - a significant fraction of energy is lost to the universe as heat.






44. Occurs when infection causes a change in the state of health.






45. A species whose very presence contributes to an ecosystem's diversity and whose extinction would consequently lead to the extinction of other forms of life.






46. The energy of motion.






47. An animal that only consumes other animals.






48. A process that allows the organic material in solid waste to be decomposed and reintroduced into the soil - often as fertilizer.






49. A platinum - coated device that oxidizes most of the VOCs and some of the CO that would otherwise be emitted in exhaust - converting them to CO2.






50. The amount of energy that plants pass on to the community of herbivores in an ecosystem.