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CLEP Biology: Principles Of Evolution

Subjects : clep, science, biology
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. Organisms struggle for existence. Organisms with advantageous characters survive - while those which lack such variations perish. The advantageous characters are passed on to the offsprings generation after generation and the organisms become better






2. About 1.8 million years ago - early Homo gave rise to _______ ________ - the species thought to have been ancestral to our own.






3. Insect ____________ is also an example of convergent evolution - as for example when an edible (palatable) butterfly develops a color pattern similar to a relatively unrelated inedible (unpalatable) butterfly - and by so doing escapes being eaten.






4. Extinctions - mostly at the level of species - have been occurring constantly at a low 'background rate' - usually matched by the rate at which new species appear - with the result that ____________ is constantly increasing.






5. In the 1680s Ariaantje and Gerrit Jansz emigrated from Holland to South Africa - one of them bringing along an allele for the mild metabolic disease porphyria. Today more than 30000 South Africans carry this allele and - in every case examined - can






6. Homology has to be distinguished from ___________; for instance - the wings of insects and the wings of birds are analogous but not homologous.






7. Almost all living organisms use the same basic biochemical molecules - including DNA - ATP - and many identical or nearly identical enzymes. Organisms utilize the same DNA triplet base _________ and the same 20 amino acids in their proteins






8. The highest category in the Linnaean system of classification is the __________. At this level - organisms are distinguished on the basis of cellular organization and methods of nutrition.






9. Jean Baptiste de Lamarck (1744-1829) developed one of the first theories on how species changed. Lamarck - in 1809 - concluded that organisms of higher complexity had __________ from preexisting - less complex organisms.






10. The most recent mass extinction - the K-T extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period - is best known for having wiped out the __________ .






11. A comparative study of physiology and biochemistry also supports the common origin for different organisms. The _____________ of all organisms cells is more or less same in composition.






12. Mammals developed from primitive mammal-like reptiles during the __________ Period - some 200-245 million years ago.






13. __________ are the remains of organisms that lived in the past.






14. _______________ is that branch of biology dealing with the identification and naming of organisms.






15. Scientific classification sorts living organisms by _________ levels of classification - kingdom; phylum; class; order; family; genus; and species.






16. A Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium provides a ___________ by which to judge whether evolution has occurred.






17. Any change of _________ frequencies in a gene pool indicates that evolution has occurred. The Hardy-Weinberg law proposes that those factors that violate the conditions listed - cause evolution.






18. When Charles Darwin was in the Galapagos islands - one of the first things he noticed is the variety of ___________ that existed on each of the islands.






19. As populations diverge - they form similar but related species. When are two populations new species? When populations no longer _____________ they are thought to be separate species.






20. Animals and plants show variations in physical structure. Some of these variations are simply caused by external conditions (environmental) - such as accidents - temperature - food abundance - etc.. ___________ variations have no effect on evolution






21. The ____________ mammals occupy Australia - and differ from placental mammals because they bear their young inside a pouch (instead of a placenta).






22. Speciation by ____________ Equilibrium involves a group of creatures which gets isolated from the rest of their species.






23. The study of ____________ ____________ supports the claim of a common origin of organisms.






24. Some important structural changes during the evolution of horse are: Increase in size from 11' (Eohippus) to about 60' (Equus) - and ___________ of the head and neck so as that it can reach the ground.






25. At some time in their life cycle - chordates have a pair of lateral gill slits or pouches used to obtain __________ in a liquid environment.






26. Humans are ____________ - meaning we walk on two of our limbs. The amount of melanin in our skin is representative of the environment we live in - i.e. dark skinned people occupy hotter climates.






27. There are at least ___________ of animals. Humans are members of the phylum Chordata.






28. Such a dual level designation is referred to as a _________ nomenclature.






29. _________ ______ disease causes anemia - joint pain - a swollen spleen - and frequent - severe infections. It illustrates balanced polymorphism because carriers are resistant to malaria - an infection by the parasite that causes cycles of chills and






30. Despite their image as brutish simpletons - _____________were the first humans to bury their dead with artifacts - indicating abstract thought - perhaps a belief in an after-life.






31. Populations begin to diverge when gene flow between them is restricted. Geographic isolation is often the first step in ____________ speciation.






32. The ______-____-______ Hypothesis proposes that some Homo erectus remained in Africa and continued to evolve into Homo sapiens - and left Africa about 100 -000-200 -000 years ago. From a single source - Homo sapiens replaced all populations of Homo e






33. _________ evidence shows that the horse has undergone considerable evolutionary change over a period of 60 million years.






34. _____________ struggle takes place between the individuals of different species.






35. _____________ is the accumulation of small changes in a gene pool over a relatively short period.






36. Homology was defined by Darwin as similarity of structure and position - and distinguished from 'analogy -' which was defined as similarity of _____________ but not necessarily of structure and position.






37. For humans - the complete classification is: Kingdom (Animalia); Phylum (__________); Class (Mammalia); Order (Primates); Family (Hominidae); Genus (Homo); Species (Sapiens).






38. Except for the tail fins - whales greatly resemble fish in outline - but are instead descended from four-legged land ___________.






39. Darwin reported that all organisms tend to _____________ in a geometric ratio provided there are no environmental checks. Even slow breeding animals like the elephant may theoretically give rise to 19 million descendants in a period of 750 years.






40. _____________ struggle takes place between the individuals of the same species.






41. All organisms are placed into one of five kingdoms: Monera - Protista - ________ - Plantae - Animalia.






42. When carriers have advantages that allow a detrimental allele to persist in a population - ______________ polymorphism is at work.






43. ______________ struggle is the struggle of organisms against the physical environment.






44. A ____________ tree is a graphical means to depict the evolutionary relationships of a group of organisms.






45. If a population began with a few individuals - one or more of whom carried a particular allele - that allele may come to be represented in many of the descendants. This is known as ____________.






46. ____________ reproduction - whether reproduction proceeds with lesser or greater success - is central to the process of natural selection; it determines whether a given mutation becomes established in the general population.






47. ____________ organs are formed on the same basic plan though they may be modified variously to perform different functions. They must have a common ancestral structure which gave rise to different modifications.






48. Darwin's Finches illustrated ___________ ____________. This is where species all deriving from a common ancestor have over time successfully adapted to their environment via natural selection.






49. The Neolithic transition - about 10 -000 years ago - involved the change from __________-__________ societies to agricultural ones based on cultivation of plants and domesticated animals.






50. At the molecular level - life's ability to reproduce begins with the replication of ____________ - during which two new spirals are created that are exact replicas of the original molecule.