Answer Key_
Name: _
Pretest: _______/50
Posttest: _______/50
Pretest Ch 16, 19.1 & 19.3:
Evolution
Part 1: Matching Vocab. Match the term on the right with the definition on the left by
placing the letter on the blank where it best matches.
H___ Darwin’s idea that organisms pass traits
1. __
down from one generation to the next
with minor differences
A. absolute dating
B. acquired
characteristic
another has now become eukaryotic cells
C. adaptation
D. analogous structure
J___ The idea that one prokaryote living inside
2. __
A___ Using half-life to find an exact date of a fossil
3. __
X___ As organisms change in the fossil record,
4. __
different fossils called __ __ are found
that get closer and closer to modern species
Z___ Parts of an organism that no longer have a
5. __
function, e.g. human’s appendix or tailbone
R___ Geologist who first proposed processes
6. __
happening today were the same in the past
K___ Process where living organisms change over time
7. __
W___ Organisms with the best traits for their
8. __
environment pass this down to children
G ___ Scientist who first proposed organisms
9. __
change by inheriting traits
E___ Consciously choosing one trait over another
10. __
as a reason to reproduce
U___ Determining one fossil is older than another,
11. __
without knowing exactly how much older
F___ Using similarities and differences of organisms
12. __
and their location to see changes over time
B___ Characteristics that develop during an animal’s
13. __
life-time; Lamarck’s ideas on evolution
S___ Did an experiment simulating earth’s early
14. __
E. artificial selection
F. biogeography
G. Darwin
H. descent with
modification
I. embryology
J. endosymbiosis
K. evolution
L. Hutton
M. fitness
N. gradualism
O. half life
P. homologous structure
Q. Lamarck
R. Lyell
S. Miller & Urey
T. natural selection
U. relative dating
V. struggle for existence
W. survival of the fittest
X. transitional species
Y. uniformitarianism
Z. vestigial structure
conditions created amino acids
D___ Parts on an organism that are similar to parts on another organism
15. __
although they do not share a common ancestor; e.g. wings on birds and
wings on insects
C___ A trait that helps an organism survive its environment
16. __
M__ How well an organisms fits into/survives in its environment
17. __
L___ Geologist who first proposed Earth is much older than a few thousand
18. __
years
N___ Changes in species happen at a slow, regular rate over time, rather than
19. __
all at once
I
21. __Y___ Geological processes happening today are the same as in the past
20. __ ___ Similarities in development before birth show evolutionary relationships
O___ The time it takes for ½ of a substance to decay, used to find age of fossils
22. __
T___ Over time, organisms that fit their environment are “chosen” to survive
23. __
Q___ Scientist who believed organisms change traits during their lifetime and
24. __
pass that down to children.
P___ Part of an organism that is similar to another organism due to a common
25. __
ancestor, e.g. wings on bats and wings on birds.
V___ There is not enough food, water, shelter for organisms so they compete
26. __
for resources
27. Miller and Urey did an experiment to show how life may have first formed on
Earth. Describe their experiment and how they thought life first arose.
They simulated Earth’s
atmosphere (mostly methane
and CO2) and oceans in a flask
and ran electricity through to
simulate lightning. It created
amino acids.
28. How did eukaryotic life first come to be?
Endosymbiosis. A small organism lived
inside another one and eventually became
chloroplasts and mitochondria. They both have
their own, separate DNA
29. How did living organisms have an effect on Earth’s early atmosphere?
Early photosynthetic organisms called
Cyanobacteria removed the CO2 and
replaced it with O2.
30. Which is the oldest fossil on the right? How can we
tell?
E…it’s on the bottom,
which was the first rock layer
formed
31. Do we know exactly how old? Why not?
No, we just know it’s older.
This is called relative dating.
32. How could we tell exactly how old?
Use the half-life of elements in the rock it’s in
to get an idea. This is called radiometric
dating and is a form of absolute dating.
Charles Darwin set his theory of evolution on the work of other scientists. Describe
each of these scientist’s ideas and how Darwin used them.
Established the idea of deep-time…that
the Earth was not 6,000 years old, but
much, much older, based on geologic
observations.
33. Hutton:
Came up with the idea of
uniformitarianism, “the present is the key
to the past”. The processes we see now
(erosion, etc.) happened in the past.
34. Lyell:
Darwin used these two Geological ideas and
applied them to living things.
Said that living things acquire new
traits during their life and pass these on.
This is called inheritance of acquired traits.
35. Lamarck:
Charle
s
Darwin
made 3 observations on his voyage on the HMS Beagle. Name/describe them.
Species Vary Globally. He noticed
different flightless birds in similar
ecosystems in S America, Africa and
Australia (rhea, ostrich, emu). Kangaroos
live only in Australia; rabbits don’t live in S.
America in similar ecosystems.
36. Globally…
Species Vary Locally. Similar animals
live in different ecosystems nearby, e.g. 1
Rhea in grassland, 1 in colder scrubland.
Different tortoises on different Galapagos
Isl.
37. Locally…
Species vary over time…fossils of
extinct animals are similar to today’s
animals.
38. Fossils…
Darwin’s theory of Evolution relies on 4 points. Explain each:
39. struggle for existence:
organisms produce more
offspring then can survive, so they compete
for resources
some organisms are different
and this makes them better.
40. variation and adaptation:
The best suited to that
environment live to make more with that
same trait (adaptation)
41. survival of the fittest:
The ones that survived become
more common in that environment. They
have been “chosen” by nature to survive.
42. natural selection:
There are many pieces of evidence for the modern Theory of Evolution by Natural
Selection. Explain each of these:
The younger a fossil
is, the more similar it is to
current organisms. The older
it is, the less similar.
43. Fossil evidence:
some closely spaced
species are similar, with
small differences in different
ecosystems. Some widely
separated species are also similar
with small differences, in similar
ecosystems.
44. Biogeography:
45. Anatomy:
Bones in organisms are
similar, although the animals are not, e.g.
our arm bones, alligator front leg bones and
bats’ wings
46. Embryology:
Very early in development,
many
look very
and are hard to
47. Biological Molecules:
DNA/RNA/ Amino
sequences
organisms show
ancestors.
organisms
similar
tell apart.
Similar
Acid
between
common
48. Differentiate between a scientific Law and Theory.
A law is a short description of what happens. It
is considered to be a fact by the scientific
community, and rarely changes. E.g.
Newton’s Laws of Motion, Laws of
Conservation (energy, matter)
A theory is a long, detailed explanation of how
something happens. It is considered to be a
fact by the scientific community, and
frequently changes. E.g. Big Bang Theory,
Theory of Evolution, Theory of Relativity
49. True or False. Explain. The Theory of Evolution is not very well accepted by the
scientific community because it is just a theory.
False. It is well accepted by scientists, though
not always by regular folks who don’t
understand the scientific definition of
theory and confuse it with a hypothesis,
which is just a guess.
50. True or False. Explain. The Theory of Evolution would be accepted by more of the
scientific community if it was a Law.
False. Laws and Theories do 2 different things
in Science (describe what, explain how). One
does not get promoted to the other when
more experiments are done. They are both
equally important in the eyes of science.
Again, regular folks don’t understand these
definitions and often think a theory is less
than a law, but more than a hypothesis.