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 succession of organisms in an ecological community that constitutes a continuation of food energy from one organism to another as each consumes a lower member and - in turn - is preyed upon by a higher member.






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






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. Occurs when infection causes a change in the state of health.






5. The broad category under which selective cutting and shelter-wood cutting fall; selective deforestation.






6. Pertaining to factors or things that are separate and independent from living things; nonliving.






7. Living or derived from living things.






8. 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






9. A plate boundary at which plates are moving away from each other. This causes an upwelling of magma from the mantle to cool and form new crust.






10. Any other species of fish - mammals - or birds that are caught that are not the target organism.






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






12. The process that occurs when two different species in a region compete and the better adapted species wins.






13. A symbiotic relationship in which both species benefit.






14. The place where two plates abut each other.






15. The edges of tectonic plates.






16. 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.






17. The use of building materials - building placement - and design to passively collect solar energy that can be used to keep a building warm or cool.






18. The amount that the population would grow if there were unlimited resources in its environment.






19. A platinum - coated device that oxidizes most of the VOCs and some of the CO that would otherwise be emitted in exhaust - converting them to CO2.






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






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






22. Using strategies to reduce the amount of risk (the degree of likelihood that a person will become ill upon exposure to a toxin or pathogen).






23. The point at which 50 percent of the test organisms show a negative effect from a toxin.






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






25. The condition in which - at ecosystem boundaries - there is greater species diversity and biological density than there is in the heart of ecological communities.






26. The development and introduction of new varieties of (mainly) wheat and rice that has increased yields per acre dramatically in countries since the 1960s.






27. Land that's fit to be cultivated.






28. Ozone that exists in the trophosphere.






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






30. Also known as plantations - these are planted and managed tracts of trees of the same age that are harvested for commercial use.






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. A tank filled with aerobic bacteria that's used to treat sewage.






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






34. Energy at rest - or stored energy.






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






36. A high-speed - meandering wind current - generally moving from a westerly direction at speeds often exceeding 400 km (250 miles) per hour at altitudes of 15 to 25 km (10 to 15 miles).






37. 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.






38. The form petroleum takes when in the ground.






39. An organism that obtains organic food molecules without eating other organisms or substances derived from other organisms. autotrophs use energy from the sun or from the oxidation of inorganic substances to make organic molecules from inorganic ones.






40. When an area of vegetation is cut down and burned before being planted with crops.






41. Organisms in the first stages of succession.






42. The uppermost horizon of soil. It is primarily made up of organic material - including waste from organisms - the bodies of decomposing organisms - and live organisms.






43. Smog resulting from emissions from industry and other sources of gases produced by the burning of fossil fuels - especially coal.






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






45. The movement of individuals into a population.






46. Change in the genetic composition of a population during successive generations as a result of natural selection acting on the genetic variation among individuals and resulting in the development of new species.






47. A severe tropical cyclone originating in the equatorial regions of the Atlantic Ocean or Caribbean Sea or eastern regions of the Pacific Ocean - traveling north - northwest - or northeast from its point of origin - and usually involving heavy rains.






48. The rocks and Earth that is removed when mining for a commercially valuable mineral resource.






49. One that has never been cut; these forests have not been seriously disturbed for several hundred years.






50. The energy of motion.