Test your basic knowledge |

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






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






3. 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).






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






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






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






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






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






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






10. _____________ 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.






11. 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).






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






13. 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.






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






15. 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






16. 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 ____________.






17. 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






18. ___________ 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.






19. 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






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






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






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






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






24. In a genetic drift the entire population may become homozygous for the allele or - equally likely - the allele may disappear. Before either of these fates occurs - the allele represents a Polymorphism. This is a case of polymorphism through...






25. 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.






26. Scientific classification sorts living organisms by _________ levels of classification - kingdom; phylum; class; order; family; genus; and species.






27. ____________ 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.






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






29. 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.






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






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






32. 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.






33. 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.






34. 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.






35. 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.






36. 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.






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






38. 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.






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






40. 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.






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






42. 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.






43. ____________ 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.






44. 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.






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






46. 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.






47. The highest category in the Linnaean system of classification is the __________. At this level - organisms are distinguished on the basis of cellular organization and methods of nutrition.






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






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






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