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






2. 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






3. Humans are ____________ - meaning we walk on two of our limbs. The amount of melanin in our skin is representative of the environment we live in - i.e. dark skinned people occupy hotter climates.






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






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






6. The ______-____-______ Hypothesis proposes that some Homo erectus remained in Africa and continued to evolve into Homo sapiens - and left Africa about 100 -000-200 -000 years ago. From a single source - Homo sapiens replaced all populations of Homo e






7. ___________ is a specific explanation of similarity of form seen in the biological world. In genetics - it is used in reference to protein or DNA sequences - meaning that the given sequences share ancestry.






8. Organisms struggle for existence. Organisms with advantageous characters survive - while those which lack such variations perish. The advantageous characters are passed on to the offsprings generation after generation and the organisms become better






9. 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.






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






11. Homology is also seen in the structure of eye - brain - joint appendages of arthropods - etc. It is thus evidence for ____________.






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






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






14. 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.






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






16. 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.






17. 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.






18. 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.






19. 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.






20. 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.






21. 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.






22. 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.






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






24. 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.






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






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






28. Speciation by ____________ Equilibrium involves a group of creatures which gets isolated from the rest of their species.






29. 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).






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






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






32. 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.






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






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






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






36. 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.






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






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






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






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






41. 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.






42. The ____________ mammals occupy Australia - and differ from placental mammals because they bear their young inside a pouch (instead of a placenta).






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






44. 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 ____________.






45. _________ evidence shows that the horse has undergone considerable evolutionary change over a period of 60 million years.






46. 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.






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






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






49. 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.






50. 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