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






2. Energy at rest - or stored energy.






3. A climate variation that takes place in the tropical Pacific about every three to seven years - for a duration of about one year.






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






5. The right - as to fishing or to the use of a riverbed - of one who owns riparian land (the land adjacent to a river or stream).






6. A program funded by the federal government and a trust that's funded by taxes on chemicals; identifies pollutants and cleans up hazardous waste sites.






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






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






9. The vertical movement of a mass of matter due to heating and cooling; this can happen in both the atmosphere and Earth's mantle.






10. The management or regulation of a resource so that its use does not exceed the capacity of the resource to regenerate itself.






11. The use of devices - such as solar panels - to collect - focus - transport - or store solar energy.






12. A lowland area - such as a marsh or swamp - that is saturated with moisture - especially when regarded as the natural habitat of wildlife.






13. The layer of the Earth between the crust and the core.






14. The dosage level of a toxin at which a negative effect occurs.






15. The unit used to describe the volume of fossil fuels.






16. When photochemical smog - NOx compounds - VOCs - and ozone combine to form smog with a brownish hue.






17. The energy of motion.






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






19. Involves the removal of the Earth's surface all the way down to the level of the mineral seam.






20. The number of children an average woman will bear during her lifetime; this information is based on an analysis of data from preceding years in the population in question.






21. Organisms that reproduce later in life - produce fewer offspring - and devote significant time and energy to the nurturing of their offspring.






22. 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






23. 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).






24. The outer part of the Earth - consisting of the crust and upper mantle - approximately 100 km (62 miles) thick.






25. 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.






26. The amount of sugar that the plants produce in photosynthesis and subtracting from it the amount of energy the plants need for growth maintenance - repair - and reproduction.






27. Radioactive wastes that produce high levels of ionizing radiation.






28. A fishing technique in which the ocean floor is literally scraped by heavy nets that smash everything in their path.






29. The phenomenon whereby the Earth's atmosphere traps solar radiation - caused by the presence in the atmosphere of gases such as carbon dioxide - water vapor - and methane that allow incoming sunlight to pass through - but absorb heat radiated back fr






30. The maximum population size that can be supported by the available resources in a region.






31. Fires that typically burn only the forest's underbrush and do little damage to mature trees. Surface fires actually serve to protect the forest from more harmful fires by removing underbrush and dead materials that would burn quickly and at high temp






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






33. The movement of individuals into a population.






34. When trees and crops are planted together - creating a mutualistic symbiotic relationship between them.






35. A process in which cold - often nutrient-rich - waters from the ocean depths rise to the surface.






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






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 structure obtained if we organize the amount of energy contained in producers and consumers in an ecosystem by kilocalories per square meter - from largest to smallest.






39. When a species occupies a smaller niche than it would in the absence of competition.






40. 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.






41. The outermost shell of the atmosphere - between the mesosphere and outer space - where temperatures increase steadily with altitude.






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. A complex of interrelated food chains in an ecological community.






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






45. The effect caused by a short exposure to a high level of toxin.






46. The degree to which a substance is biologically harmful.






47. A specific location from which pollution is released; an example of a point source location is a factory where wood is being burned.






48. Sunlight.






49. The capacity to do work.






50. A stable - mature community in a successive series that has reached equilibrium after having evolved through stages and adapted to its environment.