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Practice Test Questions
Name___________________________________
Evolution
Use the following information to answer the questions below.
A large population of laboratory animals has been allowed to breed randomly for a number of
generations. After several generations, 25% of the animals display a recessive trait (aa), the same
percentage as at the beginning of the breeding program. The rest of the animals show the
dominant phenotype, with heterozygotes indistinguishable from the homozygous dominants.
5) What is the estimated frequency of allele A in the gene pool?
A) 0.25
B) 1.00
C) 0.50
D) 0.75
E) 0.05
6) What proportion of the population is probably heterozygous (Aa) for this trait?
A) 0.05
B) 0.25
C) 1.00
D) 0.50
E) 0.75
7) In a Hardy-Weinberg population with two alleles, A and a, that are in equilibrium,
the frequency of the allele a is 0.4. What is the percentage of the population that is
homozygous for this allele?
A) 32
B) 4
C) 40
D) 36
E) 16
The following questions refer to this information:
You are studying three populations of birds. Population A has ten birds, of which one is brown (a
recessive trait) and nine are red. Population B has 100 birds, of which ten are brown. Population
C has 30 birds, and three of them are brown.
8) In which population is the frequency of the allele for brown feathers highest?
A) Population A.
B) Population B.
C) Population C.
D) They are all the same.
E) It is impossible to tell from the information given.
9) In which population would it be least likely that an accident would significantly alter
the frequency of the brown allele?
A) Population A.
B) Population B.
C) Population C.
D) They are all the same.
E) It is impossible to tell from the information given.
11) Gene flow is a concept best used to describe an exchange between
A) species.
B) chromosomes.
C) populations.
D) individuals.
E) males and females.
The following questions refer to this information:
In the wild, male house finches (Carpodus mexicanus) vary considerably in the amount of red
pigmentation in their head and throat feathers, with colors ranging from pale yellow to bright
red. These colors come from carotenoid pigments that are found in the birds' diets; no vertebrates
are known to synthesize carotenoid pigments. Thus, the brighter red the male's feathers are, the
more successful he has been at acquiring the red carotenoid pigment by his food-gathering efforts
(all other factors being equal).
13) During breeding season, one should expect female house finches to prefer to mate
with males with the brightest red feathers. Which of the following is true of this
situation?
A) There should be directional selection for bright red feathers in males.
B) Alleles that promote more effective deposition of carotenoid pigments in the
feathers of males should increase over the course of generations.
C) Alleles that promote more efficient acquisition of carotenoid-containing foods
by males should increase over the course of generations.
D) All three of these.
E) Only B and C.
14) The situation as described in the paragraph above should select most directly
against males that
A) have slightly lower levels of testosterone during breeding season than have
other males.
B) are older, but still healthy.
C) are unable to distinguish food items that are red from those of other colors.
D) have no prior experience courting female house finches.
E) are capable of defending only moderately sized territories.
15) The Darwinian fitness of an individual is measured most directly by
A) the number of "good genes" it possesses.
B) its physical strength.
C) the number of mates it attracts.
D) the number of its offspring that survive to reproduce.
E) how long it lives.
16) When we say that an individual organism has a greater fitness than another
individual, we specifically mean that the organism
A) mates more frequently than others of its species.
B) utilizes resources more efficiently than other species occupying similar niches.
C) competes for resources more successfully than others of its species.
D) leaves more viable offspring than others of its species.
E) lives longer than others of its species.
17) Bird guides once listed the myrtle warbler and Audubon's warbler as distinct
species. Recently, these birds have been classified as eastern and western forms of a
single species, the yellow-rumped warbler. Which of the following pieces of
evidence, if true, would be cause for this reclassification?
A) The two forms live in similar habitats.
B) The two forms have many genes in common.
C) The two forms have similar food requirements.
D) The two forms interbreed often in nature, and their offspring have good
survival and reproduction.
E) The two forms are very similar in coloration.
18) Males of different species of the fruit fly Drosophila that live in the same parts of the
Hawaiian islands have different elaborate courtship rituals that involve fighting
other males and stylized movements that attract females. What type of reproductive
isolation does this represent?
A) behavioral isolation
B) postzygotic barriers
C) gametic isolation
D) temporal isolation
E) habitat isolation
19)
20) Three living species X, Y, and Z share a common ancestor T, as do extinct species U
and V. A grouping that includes species T, X, Y, and Z makes up
A) a polyphyletic grouping.
B) a valid taxon.
C) an ingroup, with species U as the outgroup.
D) a paraphyletic grouping.
E) a monophyletic clade.
21) Based on this tree, which of the following statements is not correct?
A)
B)
C)
D)
The group highlighted by shading is paraphyletic.
Salamanders are as closely related to goats as they are to humans.
Lizards are more closely related to salamanders than lizards are to humans.
Salamanders are a sister group to the group containing lizards, goats, and
humans.
E) The lineage leading to salamanders was the first to diverge from the other
lineages.
22) To apply parsimony to constructing a phylogenetic tree,
A) choose the tree that assumes all evolutionary changes are equally probable.
B) choose the tree that represents the fewest evolutionary changes, either in DNA
sequences or morphology.
C) choose the tree in which the branch points are based on as many shared
derived characters as possible.
D) choose the tree with the fewest branch points.
E) base phylogenetic trees only on the fossil record, as this provides the simplest
explanation for evolution.
23) All the organisms on your campus make up
A) an experimental group.
B) a population.
C) an ecosystem.
D) a taxonomic domain.
E) a community.
24) Which of the following is a correct sequence of levels in life's hierarchy, proceeding
downward from an individual animal?
A) organ system, nervous tissue, brain
B) nervous system, brain, nervous tissue, nerve cell
C) organ system, tissue, molecule, cell
D) organism, organ system, tissue, cell, organ
E) brain, organ system, nerve cell, nervous tissue
25) Which of the following is not an observation or inference on which Darwin's theory
of natural selection is based?
A) There is heritable variation among individuals.
B) Poorly adapted individuals never produce offspring.
C) Because of overproduction of offspring, there is competition for limited
resources.
D) A population can become adapted to its environment.
E) Individuals whose inherited characteristics best fit them to the environment
will generally produce more offspring.
26) Protists and bacteria are grouped into different domains because
A) protists have a membrane-bounded nucleus, which bacterial cells lack.
B) protists are photosynthetic.
C) bacteria are not made of cells.
D) protists eat bacteria.
E) bacteria decompose protists.
The following questions refer to Figure 17.5, a table of codons.
27) Using Figure 17.5, identify a 5' → 3' sequence of nucleotides in the DNA template
strand for an mRNA coding for the polypeptide sequence Phe-Pro-Lys.
A) 5'-CTTCGGGAA-3'
B) 5'-AAACCCUUU-3'
C) 5'-UUUGGGAAA-3'
D) 5'-AAAACCTTT-3'
E) 5'-GAACCCCTT-3'
28) Which of the following mutations would be most likely to have a harmful effect on
an organism?
A) a single nucleotide deletion in the middle of an intron
B) a single nucleotide deletion near the end of the coding sequence
C) a single nucleotide insertion downstream of, and close to, the start of the
coding sequence
D) a deletion of three nucleotides near the middle of a gene
E) a base-pair substitution
29) Which of the following observations helped Darwin shape his concept of descent
with modification?
A) Species diversity declines farther from the equator.
B) Earthquakes reshape life by causing mass extinctions.
C) South American temperate plants are more similar to the tropical plants of
South America than to the temperate plants of Europe.
D) Fewer species live on islands than on the nearest continents.
E) Birds can be found on islands located farther from the mainland than the birds'
maximum nonstop flight distance.
30) DNA sequences in many human genes are very similar to the sequences of
corresponding genes in chimpanzees. The most likely explanation for this result is
that
A) humans and chimpanzees share a relatively recent common ancestor.
B) humans evolved from chimpanzees.
C) convergent evolution led to the DNA similarities.
D) humans and chimpanzees are not closely related.
E) chimpanzees evolved from humans.
31. What is the correct format for the scientific name of an extinct carnivorous dinosaur?
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
tyrannosaurus Rex
Tyrannosaurus Rex
Tyrannosaurus rex
Tyrannosaurusrex
tyrannosaurus rex
32. Which classification level would contain the greatest number of species?
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
class
division or phylum
domain
family
order
33. Which of the following does NOT describe members of the Kingdom Fungi?
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
absorb nutrients produced by other organisms
possess cell walls
not photosynthetic
cells lack a nucleus
yeasts and mushrooms
34. An example of homologous structures is the wing of a bat and:
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
the
the
the
the
the
arm of a human.
wing of a beetle.
tail of a whale.
leg of a chimpanzee.
dorsal fin of a shark.
35. The organism labeled B in the
accompanying figure is a common ancestor
to:
A.
B.
C.
D.
organism
organism
organism
organism
2.
3.
5.
6.
E.
All of these.
36. In the accompanying figure, the pair of
organisms that have the most recent
ancestor is:
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
2
6
4
2
1
and
and
and
and
and
4.
4.
5.
3.
2.
37. In the accompanying figure, the taxon labeled II is:
A.
B.
C.
monophyletic.
paraphyletic.
polyphyletic.
38. All of the taxa in a monophyletic group can be called a:
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
division.
class.
clade.
phyla.
derivative.