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






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






3. 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.






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






5. 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.






6. 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.






7. _________ ______ 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






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






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






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






11. 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.






12. 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.






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






14. 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.






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






16. An important step toward the modern theory of evolution came in the 1760's - when Count George-Louis Leclerc de Buffon (1707-1788) published his Natural History of Animals with the idea that species __________ over time.






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






18. Charles Darwin published a book The Origin of Species in the year 1859. He proposed that the new species came about by a process called ___________ __________.






19. The Regional ___________ Hypothesis suggests that regional populations of H. erectus evolved into H. sapiens through interbreeding between the various populations.






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






21. The __________ kingdom consists of one-celled organisms as well - but differs from the Monera kingdom in that it consists of eukaryotes.






22. Almost all _________ organisms are either plants or animals.






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






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






25. Primates evolved about approximately 30 million years ago in ___________. One branch of primates evolved into the Old and New World Monkeys - the other into the hominoids (the line of descent common to both apes and man).






26. 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.






27. 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.






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






29. ___________ evolution is an evolutionary process in which organisms not closely related independently acquire some characteristic or characteristics in common.






30. 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.






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






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






33. Linnaeus placed all monkeys and apes along with humans into the order _________






34. 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






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






36. 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.






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






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






39. In a genetic drift the entire population may become homozygous for the allele or - equally likely - the allele may disappear. Before either of these fates occurs - the allele represents a Polymorphism. This is a case of polymorphism through...






40. ___________ speciation happens when members of a population develop some genetic difference that prevents them from reproducing with the parent type.






41. 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.






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






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






44. 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.






45. The mutation may be harmful (resulting in a reduced probability of survival for the organism involved) - ____________ (it might also do its intended job better) or merely neutral (no effect at all).






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






47. 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






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






49. ____________ 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.






50. 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.