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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. 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.






2. 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.






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






4. _____________ 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.






5. 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).






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






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






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






9. 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.






10. 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.






11. ____________ 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.






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






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






15. 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 ____________.






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






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






18. 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).






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






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






21. 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






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






23. ___________ 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.






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






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






26. 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.






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






28. _________ ______ 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






29. 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.






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






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






32. 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.






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






34. 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






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






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. Almost all _________ organisms are either plants or animals.






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






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






40. 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






41. 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.






42. 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.






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






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






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






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






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






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






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