Quiz

QUIZ

1. What did Darwin mainly study in developing his theories of evolution?

a. Turtles b. Apes c. Fish d. Birds

Answer: d. Darwin studied differences in finch populations that conferred reproductive advantages to different types of finches by virtue of differences in the shapes of their beaks, allowing those that could eat certain things to survive and reproduce.

2. What is the greatest fact that must take place before a trait can be increased in a population of animals, allowing for evolutionary changes in a population?

a. The trait must change during the individual’s lifetime. b. The trait must offer a reproductive advantage to the animal. c. The trait must be heritable. d. The trait must change the feeding characteristics of the animal.

Answer: b. Regardless of the trait, it must offer some type of reproductive advantage so that the species is able to reproduce more readily than organisms that do not have the trait. This is the only way that the trait can grow and perpetuate over time and over subsequent generations.

3. What antibiotic has become much less useful over the years because of resistant microorganisms like MRSA?

a. Penicillin b. Tetracycline c. Vancomycin d. Mupirocin

Answer: a. MRSA has led to marked resistances of organisms to penicillin, so that it has become much less effective in the treatment of many bacterial infections.

4. What is true of most large mutations in DNA that occur in an organism’s offspring?

a. They offer a neutral advantage to the offspring. b. They offer a slight disadvantage to the offspring. c. They decrease the reproductive rate of the offspring. d. They are lethal to the offspring.

Answer: d. Most large mutations in DNA are lethal to the offspring; some will be neutral; and very few will be either advantageous or disadvantageous to the offspring.

5. After the first common ancestor began on earth, what organisms involved the first split that occurred in species on earth?

a. Archaea and bacteria b. Bacteria and viruses c. Bacteria and fungi d. Archaea and viruses

Answer: a. The first major split occurred between archaea and bacteria about 3.8 billion years ago, shortly after life first began on earth. These represent two of the major domains on earth.

6. About when did the great oxidation event occur in order to allow oxygen to build up in earth’s atmosphere as a waste product of photosynthetic bacterial metabolism?

a. 3.8 billion years ago b. 3.1 billion years ago c. 2.4 billion years ago d. 1.4 billion years ago

Answer: c. At about 2.4 billion years ago, there were bacteria (possibly cyanobacteria) that started giving off enough oxygen as a waste product in order to have oxygenation of the earth and oxidation of iron.

7. How did the first multicellular animals first get oxygen and nutrients?

a. Diffusion b. Hollow bodies c. Primitive circulatory systems d. Photosynthetic parasites

Answer: b. The first multicellular organisms first get oxygen and nutrients by having hollow bodies through which water and nutrients flow to provide these things to the rest of the organism.

8. What type of animal was the first bilateral animal on earth as part of evolution?

a. Insect b. Fish c. Jellyfish d. Worm

Answer: d. The first bilateral organism among animals was a type of worm, of which at least one related species survives to this day.

9. Which organism are mammals least related to evolutionarily-speaking?

a. Reptiles b. Amphibians c. Birds d. Fish

Answer: d. Mammals belong to the “lobe-finned fish category” versus the “ray-finned fish category”, which are what the modern-day fish come from.

10. Which animal came along first from an evolutionary standpoint?

a. Lungfish b. Tiktaalik c. Amphibians d. Birds

Answer: a. Lungfish came first and have the ability to thrive on land during drought periods or in water. They were first seen around 417 million years ago.