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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. Homo erectus was the first hominid to use ___________ - and have social structures for food gathering.






2. As the finch population began to flourish in these advantageous conditions - ______________ competition became a factor - and resources on the islands were squeezed and could not sustain the population of the finches for long.






3. Members of the phylum _____________ have soft - unsegmented bodies that are usually - but not always - enclosed in hard shells.






4. Heritable variations are called _____________ variations. Such variations arising from changes in DNA are passed on within families and to the offspring from the parents.






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






6. The only kingdom which consists of prokaryotes is the __________ kingdom.






7. 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.






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






9. The early stages of development of the ___________ of fish - salamander - tortoise - hen and man show remarkable similarity.






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






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






12. An allele may increase - or decrease - in frequency simply through ___________. Not every member of the population will become a parent and not every set of parents will produce the same number of offspring.






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






14. 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.






15. Prior to the scientific discoveries of the past 200 years - _____________ from the Book Of Genesis described how living things came into being.






16. _____________ can occur randomly - from radiation damage (impact with high energy g-rays or cosmic rays) - from exposure to chemical agents called mutagens - or simply by error in the DNA replication process.






17. ____________ 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.






18. 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.






19. 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.






20. 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.






21. In species which reproduce _____________ - extinction of a species is generally inevitable when there is only one individual of that species left - or only individuals of a single sex.






22. 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.






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






24. Immediately below kingdom is the _________ level of classification. At this level - animals are grouped together based on similarities in basic body plan or organization.






25. Biodiversity crashes during ________ extinctions. This has been a powerful force in evolution - wiping the slate clean of up to 96% of all species - and providing the survivors with a world full of opportunities into which they can diversify.






26. 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






27. 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 ____________.






28. Differential reproduction allows one species to gradually evolve into a new species. This is the process of ____________.






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






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






31. _________ ______ 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






32. 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.






33. 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.






34. Because organisms are continually tested by their changing ______________ - their forms change to suit new conditions.






35. According to Darwin - in spite of the high reproductive potential - the number of individuals in a species remains relatively constant - suggesting _____________ for existence.






36. There are certain animals with intermediate characters between two major groups of animals. They are called ___________ _____.






37. The Linnaean system uses two Latin name categories - ________ and species - to designate each type of organism.






38. A ___________ can be defined as one or more populations of interbreeding organisms that are reproductively isolated in nature from all other organisms.






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






40. In general if two genes have an almost identical DNA sequence - it is likely that they are ____________.






41. 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






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






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






44. About 2 million years ago - two groups developed: the australopithecines - generally smaller brained and not users of tools; and the line that led to genus _________ - larger brained and makers and users of tools.






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






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






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






48. The _______-_________ Law states that an equilibrium of allele frequencies in a gene pool remains in effect in each succeeding generation of a sexually reproducing population if five conditions are met.






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






50. 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