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






2. _______________ is that branch of biology dealing with the identification and naming of organisms.






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






4. 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.






5. The study of ____________ ____________ supports the claim of a common origin of organisms.






6. Humans who have produced offspring that successfully live in a ________ environment tend to be broader and smaller in stature while hotter environments are occupied by thinner taller humans.






7. 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.






8. 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.






9. 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.






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






11. 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 ___________ __________.






12. _____________ is the end of a particular evolutionary line - the end of a species - a family - or a larger group of organisms.






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






14. 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.






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






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






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






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






19. __________ are the remains of organisms that lived in the past.






20. 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.






21. All organisms are placed into one of five kingdoms: Monera - Protista - ________ - Plantae - Animalia.






22. 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.






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






24. 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.






25. 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.






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






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






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






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






30. When carriers have advantages that allow a detrimental allele to persist in a population - ______________ polymorphism is at work.






31. _____________ can occur randomly - from radiation damage (impact with high energy g-rays or cosmic rays) - from exposure to chemical agents called mutagens - or simply by error in the DNA replication process.






32. 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).






33. A comparative study of physiology and biochemistry also supports the common origin for different organisms. The _____________ of all organisms cells is more or less same in composition.






34. 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).






35. 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.






36. 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






37. ___________ 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.






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






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






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






41. 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.






42. Homology has to be distinguished from ___________; for instance - the wings of insects and the wings of birds are analogous but not homologous.






43. 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.






44. Most anthropologists agree that the ______ _______ was populated by a series of three migrations over the temporary land connection between Asia and North America.






45. ____________ 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.






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






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






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






49. 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






50. Differential reproduction allows one species to gradually evolve into a new species. This is the process of ____________.







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