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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. Almost all _________ organisms are either plants or animals.






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






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






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






5. 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.






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






7. 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






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






9. 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.






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






11. 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.






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






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






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






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






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






17. 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.






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






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






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






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






22. 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.






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






24. 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.






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






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






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






28. 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.






29. Because organisms are continually tested by their changing ______________ - their forms change to suit new conditions.






30. 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 ___________ __________.






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






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






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






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






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






36. 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






37. 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 ____________.






38. 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...






39. 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.






40. 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.






41. 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).






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






43. Some important structural changes during the evolution of horse are: Increase in size from 11' (Eohippus) to about 60' (Equus) - and ___________ of the head and neck so as that it can reach the ground.






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






45. 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.






46. 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.






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






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. 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.






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






Can you answer 50 questions in 15 minutes?



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