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






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






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






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






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






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






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






8. 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).






9. 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.






10. ____________ 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.






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






12. 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.






13. 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






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






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






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






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






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






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






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






21. 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.






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






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






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






25. 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.






26. 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






27. 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






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






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






30. ___________ 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.






31. _________ ______ disease causes anemia - joint pain - a swollen spleen - and frequent - severe infections. It illustrates balanced polymorphism because carriers are resistant to malaria - an infection by the parasite that causes cycles of chills and






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






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






34. 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.






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






36. 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.






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






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






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






40. 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...






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






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






43. Biodiversity crashes during ________ extinctions. This has been a powerful force in evolution - wiping the slate clean of up to 96% of all species - and providing the survivors with a world full of opportunities into which they can diversify.






44. ____________ 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.






45. 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.






46. 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).






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






48. 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.






49. 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.






50. 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 ___________ __________.