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






2. The low-rainfall region that exists on the leeward (downwind) side of a mountain range. This rain shadow is the result of the mountain range's causing precipitation on the windward side.






3. 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.






4. An effect that results from long -term exposure to low levels of toxin.






5. The second-purest form of coal.






6. A soil horizon; B receives the minerals and organic materials that are leached out of the A horizon.






7. 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.






8. Involves the sinking of shafts to reach underground deposits. In this type of mining - networks of tunnels are dug or blasted and humans enter these tunnels in order to manually retrieve the coal.






9. A model that's used to predict population trends based on the birth and death rates as well as economic status of a population.






10. A layer in a large body of water - such as a lake - that sharply separates regions differing in temperature - so that the temperature gradient across the layer is abrupt.






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






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






13. The amount of time it takes for half of a radioactive sample to disappear.






14. The capacity to do work.






15. Any waste that poses a danger to human health; it must be dealt with in a different way from other types of waste.






16. A program funded by the federal government and a trust that's funded by taxes on chemicals; identifies pollutants and cleans up hazardous waste sites.






17. When the majority of a building's occupants experience certain symptoms that vary with the amount of time spent in the building.






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






19. Soil composed of a mixture of sand - clay - silt - and organic matter.






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






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






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






23. Air currents caused by the vertical movement of air due to atmospheric heating and cooling.






24. A waste product produced by the burning of coal.






25. An animal that only consumes other animals.






26. A process in which cold - often nutrient-rich - waters from the ocean depths rise to the surface.






27. Countries that have a renewable annual water supply of less than 1 -000 m3 per person.






28. An estimate of the amount of fossil fuel that can be obtained from reserve.






29. An influential theory that concerns the long - term rate of conventional oil (and other fossil fuel) extraction and depletion. It predicts that future world oil production will soon reach a peak and then rapidly decline.






30. The biological treatment of wastewater in order to continue to remove biodegradable waste.






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






32. When a species occupies a smaller niche than it would in the absence of competition.






33. A process in which an organism is exposed to a toxin at different concentrations - and the dosage that causes the death of the organism is recorded.






34. An introduced - normative species.






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






36. The cleanest-burning coal; almost pure carbon.






37. The movement of individuals into a population.






38. An organism that cannot synthesize its own food and is dependent on complex organic substances for nutrition.






39. Fires that typically burn only the forest's underbrush and do little damage to mature trees. Surface fires actually serve to protect the forest from more harmful fires by removing underbrush and dead materials that would burn quickly and at high temp






40. The conversion of atmospheric nitrogen into compounds - such as ammonia - by natural agencies or various industrial processes.






41. The result of a pathogen invading a body.






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






43. The observed effect of the Coriolis force - especially the deflection of an object moving above the Earth - rightward in the Northern Hemisphere - and leftward in the Southern Hemisphere.






44. When materials - such as plastic or aluminum - are used to rebuild the same product. An example of this is the use of the aluminum from aluminum cans to produce more aluminum cans.






45. The process by which - according to Darwin's theory of evolution - only the organisms best adapted to their environment tend to survive and transmit their genetic characteristics in increasing numbers to succeeding generations - while those less adap






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






47. A process in which rows of crops are plowed across the hillside; this prevents the erosion that can occur when rows are cut up and down on a slope. ...






48. The carrier organism through which pathogens can attack.






49. The thinning of the ozone layer over Antarctica (and to some extent - over the Arctic).






50. The part of the mantle that lies just below the lithosphere.