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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. 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.






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






3. ____________ reproduction - whether reproduction proceeds with lesser or greater success - is central to the process of natural selection; it determines whether a given mutation becomes established in the general population.






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






5. The Linnaean system uses two Latin name categories - ________ and species - to designate each type of organism.






6. 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.






7. 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.






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






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






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






11. A Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium provides a ___________ by which to judge whether evolution has occurred.






12. 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.






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






14. 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.






15. 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).






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






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






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






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






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






21. 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.






22. 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.






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






24. 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.






25. 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 ____________.






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






27. 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.






28. Almost all living organisms use the same basic biochemical molecules - including DNA - ATP - and many identical or nearly identical enzymes. Organisms utilize the same DNA triplet base _________ and the same 20 amino acids in their proteins






29. _____________ 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.






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






31. 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.






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






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






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






35. There are certain animals with intermediate characters between two major groups of animals. They are called ___________ _____.






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






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






38. 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






39. 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.






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






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






42. ____________ 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.






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






44. Darwin's Finches illustrated ___________ ____________. This is where species all deriving from a common ancestor have over time successfully adapted to their environment via natural selection.






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






46. 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






47. Prior to the scientific discoveries of the past 200 years - _____________ from the Book Of Genesis described how living things came into being.






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






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






50. 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.