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. The part of the Earth and its atmosphere in which living organisms exist or that is capable of supporting life.






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






3. The day-to-day variations in temperature - air pressure - wind - humidity - and precipitation mediated by the atmosphere in a given region.






4. 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






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






6. Acid rain - acid hail - acid snow; all of which occur as a result of pollution in the atmosphere.






7. 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.






8. A place where a large quantity of a resource sits for a long period of time.






9. When physically treated sewage water is passed into a settling tank - where suspended solids settle out as sludge; chemically treated polymers may be added to help the suspended solids separate and settle out.






10. A cooling of the ocean surface off the western coast of South America - occurring periodically every 4 to 12 years and affecting Pacific and other weather patterns.






11. A group of organisms of the same species that live in the same area.






12. Refers to when farmers plant seeds without using a plow to turn the soil.






13. The management of forest plantations for the purpose of harvesting timber.






14. 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.






15. The coarsest soil - with particles 0.05 -2.0 mm in diameter.






16. A hydrocarbon deposit - such as petroleum - coal - or natural gas - derived from living matter of a previous geologic time and used for fuel.






17. A method of supplying irrigation water through tubes that literally drip water onto the soil at the base of each plant.






18. The solids that remain after the secondary treatment of sewage.






19. Devices containing alkaline substances that precipitate out much of the sulfur dioxide from industrial plants.






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






21. Ozone that exists in the trophosphere.






22. The liquid that percolates to the bottom of a landfill.






23. To convert or change into a vapor.






24. Piles of gangue - which is the waste material that results from mining.






25. Any weathering that's caused by the activities of living organisms.






26. Resources that are often formed by very slow geologic processes - so we consider them incapable of being regenerated within the realm of human existence.






27. The second-purest form of coal.






28. Open or forested areas built at the outer edge of a city.






29. Calculating risk - or the degree of likelihood that a person will become ill upon exposure to a toxin or pathogen.






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






31. The third purest form of coal.






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






33. When ecological succession begins in a virtually lifeless area - such as the area behind a moving glacier.






34. 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.






35. The process of burning.






36. The least pure coal.






37. 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.






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






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






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






41. An opening in the Earth's crust through which molten lava - ash - and gases are ejected.






42. Biotic and abiotic natural ecosystems.






43. Power generated using water.






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






45. Land that's fit to be cultivated.






46. Non-moving sources of pollution - such as factories.






47. The process in which animals (and plants!) breathe and give off carbon dioxide from cellular metabolism.






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






49. When one species feeds on another.






50. An organism such as a bacterium or protozoan - that obtains its nourishment through the oxidation of inorganic chemical compounds - as opposed to photosynthesis.