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Life, 4/e

Ricki Lewis, University of New York at Albany
Mariëlle Hoefnagels, University of Oklahoma
Douglas Gaffin, University of Oklahoma
Bruce Parker, Utah Valley State College

Evidence for Evolution

Chapter Quiz


1	The field of science that attempts to explain how species arose and how they are interrelated is _________.
		A)	systematics
		B)	paleontology
		C)	epidemiology
		D)	cladistics


2	A cladogram depends on a ____________ to distinguish between groups.
		A)	unit of time
		B)	DNA sequence
		C)	derived character
		D)	ancient structure


3	True or false. Cladograms are primarily useful to help researchers construct hypotheses about origins and relationships.
		A)	True
		B)	False


4	True or false. Fossils have meaning only in a context.
		A)	True
		B)	False


5	The common ancestor of the three major meat-eating dinosaurs may have been ____________.
		A)	Allosaurus
		B)	the theropods
		C)	Tyrannosaurus
		D)	Gigantosaurus


6	Why are dinosaur fossils found on all continents?
		A)	geologic upheaval widely distributed the remains
		B)	convergent evolution of several groups
		C)	dinosaurs evolved before the land masses parted
		D)	a result of the bottleneck effect


7	How old must remains be before they are considered to be fossils?
		A)	1000 years
		B)	10,000 years
		C)	100,000 years
		D)	1 million years


8	____________ dating is based on the depth of the rock layer in which the fossil is found.
		A)	Absolute
		B)	Relative
		C)	Radiometric
		D)	Amino acid


9	Radiometric dating _____________.
		A)	is a type of absolute dating
		B)	employs the half-life of radioactive isotopes
		C)	uses potassium 40 and carbon 14
		D)	All of these are correct.


10	Similar structures in different organisms inherited from a common ancestor are said to be ________________.
		A)	homologous
		B)	analogous
		C)	vestigial
		D)	None of these is correct.


11	Which of these represents an example of a vestigial structure?
		A)	insect and birds wings
		B)	leg bones in whales
		C)	dinosaur clavicles and bird wishbones
		D)	All of these are correct.


12	True or false. Humans have no vestigial organs.
		A)	True
		B)	False


13	What was the greatest error in naturalist Ernst Haeckel’s drawings of embryos and how they provide evolutionary clues?
		A)	he used artistic license in making the embryos look more similar
		B)	distinctions between embryos were blurry
		C)	he used ink that faded quickly
		D)	he did not accurately represent scale


14	True or false. Chromosomes that are similar in different species are said to be highly conserved.
		A)	True
		B)	False


15	True or false. Interpreting molecular data is more subjective than viewing structures to determine whether they are analogous or homologous.
		A)	True
		B)	False


16	Which animal shares the smallest proportion of common chromosome bands with humans?
		A)	chimpanzees
		B)	orangutans
		C)	domestic cats
		D)	mice


17	True or false. Comparing amino acid sequences in cytochrome c can determine relatedness among organisms.
		A)	True
		B)	False


18	DNA ________________ uses complementary base pairing to estimate the degree of similarity between two species.
		A)	sequencing
		B)	hybridization
		C)	pathways
		D)	All of these are correct.


19	If scientists know both the mutation rate for a gene and the number of differences in DNA sequences between two species for that gene, then they can estimate the time these two species diverged from a common ancestor. Estimating time in this manner employs a(n) ________________.
		A)	amino acid hybridization
		B)	radiometric dating
		C)	molecular clock
		D)	geologic time scale


20	True or false. A complication of molecular clock studies is that DNA base substitutions occur in different genes at different rates.
		A)	True
		B)	False


21	What unique attributes of mitochondrial DNA make it useful in tracking recent evolutionary time or evolutionary relationships?
		A)	mitochondrial DNA mutates 5-10 times faster than nuclear DNA
		B)	mitochondrial DNA cannot repair errors in DNA replication
		C)	mitochondrial DNA is inherited only from oocytes
		D)	All of these are correct.


22	True or false. Molecular and fossil records most always coincide.
		A)	True
		B)	False

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