Download Evolution Study Guide

Evolution Study Guide
Directions: Go back through each activity and FIND the correct answer. You should not
be guessing your way through the study guide.
1. What types of different fossils do scientists find?
2. What percentage of organisms will become fossils?
3. Name the 3 types of rock. Which one contains fossils?
4. How is the geologic time scale divided (name the time divisions in order)?
5. What marks the beginning and end of an era?
6. Age of the Fish______________________
Age of the Reptile___________________
Age of the Mammal______________________
Name of the extinction that ended the Paleozoic Era____________________________
Name of the extinction that ended the Mesozoic Era and what event caused the
extinction_________________________________________________________
Humans evolved during the _____________________period of the
_________________era.
Describe the Cambrian Explosion. During which Era did it occur?
Are humans thousands, millions, or billions of years old?
Precambrian time =_______% of Earth’s history!!!!!
7. What is a common ancestor and are ALL species related to each other?
8. What is the common ancestor to all species? When did this species first evolve?
9. Name several ways a species can become extinct.
10. Why do we not see a lot of single celled fossils in the fossil record?
11. Why do scientists use drill cores? Explain how and where they would obtain drill cores?
12. What do paleontologists study?
13. Explain the Law of Superposition. Does it tell us absolute age or relative age?
14. What is an index fossil? Does it tell us about absolute or relative age?
15. Explain what absolute age is and how scientists are able to tell the absolute age of a rock.
16. What happens to the number of radioactive atoms in igneous rock over time? Stable
atoms? What is half-life? Does the half-life change over time or is it constant?
17. What is the difference between observations, inferences, hypotheses, and scientific
theories?
18. Put the following in order of when they evolved: amphibians, birds, fish, bacteria,
mammals, humans, reptiles.
19. How does Lamarck’s theory differ from Darwin and Wallace’s theory?
20. What are examples of acquired traits vs. inherited ones?
21. Whose theory was about acquired traits? Was he correct or incorrect?
22. How old is the Earth? What eon, era, period and epoch are we currently in?
23. When, where, and on what ship did Darwin take his voyage where he gathered evidence
for evolution? (Act 97) What species did he study?
24. What types of evidence do scientists look at to provide evidence for evolution?
25. What causes variation in a population? EXPLAIN.
26. What is a trade-off?
27. Is an observation always a fact? Is an observation always a description?
28. What traits can be passed down from generation to generation? Which traits cannot?
29. What is evolution? How does speciation and extinction fit in to the big picture of
evolution?
30. What can you learn from DNA as it relates to the relationships between species?
31. Compare the Big Bang and Modern Nebular Hypothesis.
32. Compare uniformitarianism and catastrophism and provide an example of each.
33. Explain natural selection using the terms “mutation, variation, favored trait, and
adaptation.”
34. What is biodiversity? How is biodiversity different than variation?
35. T or F All mutations are harmful. EXPLAIN and provide evidence.
36. Define evolution. How is it different than natural selection?
37. What “selects” which trait is considered the favored trait?
38. Intrusions are always_______________________than the rock found around or BELOW
it. Rock found ABOVE intrusions would be ________________________.
39. Draw a picture of an ancestor of a whale!!!!! Whales belong to which class of
vertebrates?
Evolution Essay Possibilities
1. Name TWO different types of evidence that scientists use to show how we have evolved
over time. Explain how each type can be used as evidence by relating them to activities
we have done in class). Hint: Act. 99, Act 100
2. Define speciation in your own words. Explain HOW speciation occurs over time by
explaining how one species of finch could become 14 species of finches as Darwin found
on the Galapagos Islands.
3. In 1848, there was one known black moth and all other moths were light in color. In
1895, 95% of moths were black! These moths spend more of their time on the trunks of
trees, and scientists said that the huge increase in black moths was due to the rapid
increase of industrialization, which caused tree trunks to darken with soot! Explain why
over a period of only 47 years, the moths changed from a mostly light colored population
to a black one! (Use all the same words you did from your “elephant” question)