Biology 105
Midterm 2 v. 2 March 22, 2007
Multiple Choice. Choose the one best answer. 2 pts each.
Name___________________________________________
1. Modern plant cells combine the descendants of how many separate evolutionary lines of early cell types?
a. 1
b. 2
c. 3
d. 4
2. Living in trees helped the primates to evolve
a. big brains
b. very mobile shoulders
c. fingernails
d. all of these
3. The Irish elk may have become extinct because of the males’ giant horns, which evolved due to
a. natural selection
b. artificial selection
c. sexual selection
d. none of these
4. Which is the most primitive direct human ancestor?
a. Homo erectus
b. Australopithicus afarensis
c. Homo habilis
d. Australopithicus boysei
5. Mitochondrial genes are
a. maternally inherited
b. paternally inherited
c. not inherited at all
d. located within the nucleus
6. Fossils are used as evidence to show that ____ has occurred.
a. microevolution
b. macroevolution
c. both
d. neither
7. When hit with a new pesticide, the bug that survives is the one that
a. already has a gene to break it down
b. can evolve a new gene to break it down
c. can figure out how to break it down
d. can learn to use old genes in new ways
8. In the primordial soup, you might find all EXCEPT which?
a. organic (cellular) molecules
b. primitive cells
9. Evolution is:
a. A rare event
c. Constantly occurring at the same rate in ALL organisms
c. toxic substances
d. plants and animals
b. Currently occurring only in scientific laboratories
d. An inevitable consequence of the nature of organisms
10. Artificial selection has been a big factor in the evolution of:
a. moths
b. pandas
c. dogs
d. whales
11. When a population’s territory becomes divided into two geographically separate groups which can't interbreed, what is
likely to happen?
a. adaptive radiation
b. speciation
c. mutation
d. they will become living fossils
12. In one evolutionary study, fish that died in a pond were compared to those that survived. The results are shown in the
table below.
Dead fish
Surviving fish
Average length (mm)
29.5
26.3
Average weight (g)
52.4
55.1
This study indicates that what type of fish is being selected for?
a. longer, wider fish
b. shorter, wider fish
c. shorter, narrower fish
d. longer, narrower fish
13. Which is an example of ape culture?
a. using sticks to fish for termites
b. grooming one another
c. mating
d. there is no ape culture
14. Forward motion of animals in space was closely associated with the evolution of bilateral symmetry and
a. flow-through digestion
b. segmentation
c. a head
d. life on land
15. In mimicry, the mimics and models must
a. live in similar climates, although not necessarily near one another
b. live close together
c. taste the same to predators
d. be camouflaged to resemble their backgrounds
16. In a certain plant population, red flowers (R) are dominant to yellow flowers (r). If there are 50 plants, 10 homozygous
dominant, 35 heterozygous, and 5 homozygous recessive, what are the allele frequencies in that population?
a. 55% R, 45 % r
b. 90% R, 10% r
c. 45% R, 55% r
d. you can't tell from this data
17. Which is an example of temporal isolation?
a. a type of fly is ready to mate by the middle of February every year, while a closely related species does not mate until
the middle of March.
b. two animals of different species can mate but the fertilized egg never survives to develop.
c. female fruit flies can distinguish males of their species by a special antenna-waving dance
d. pollen from one plant cannot grow correctly on the flower of a different species
18. Which process enlarges a species’ gene pool?
a. reproduction
b. meiosis
c. evolution
d. mutation
19. Which of the following is NOT likely to be a result of artificial selection in plants?
a. production of larger fruits
b. better protection against predators, such as thorns and toxin
c. loss of dispersal mechanisms (parachutes, wings, etc.) on the fruit
d. simultaneous ripening of fruit
20. Which is the correct order of appearance on Earth?
a. photosynthetic procaryotes, eucaryotes, primordial soup, non-photosynthetic procaryotes
b. primordial soup, non-photosynthetic procaryotes, photosynthetic procaryotes, eucaryotes
c. primordial soup, eucaryotes, photosynthetic prokaryotes, non-photosynthetic procaryotes
d. non-photosynthetic procaryotes, photosynthetic procaryotes, primordial soup, eukaryotes
21. In which evolutionary process does development stop early so that adults retain characteristics that are seen in juveniles
of related species?
a. progeneria
b. homologous development
c. sexual selection
d. neoteny
22. Which of the following is a basic requirement for natural selection to be an effective evolutionary force?
a. Individuals must reproduce at a rapid rate.
b. Each population must be limited to a small size.
c. A population must exhibit some genetic variability.
d. All of the above.
23. Which of the following is an example of a microevolution?
a. The evolution of antibiotic resistance in bacteria.
b. The speciation of finches on the Galapagos islands.
c. The increase in size, over time, of fossil horses.
d. The evolution of humans from an ancestral primate.
24. Sometimes the chromosomes of a plant can become duplicated, so that instead of each cell having 2 of each type of
chromosome, diploid cells have 4 of each type of chromosome. A plant with this change can no longer successfully mate
with others of its species. What effect would this change have on evolution of this plant species?
a. It would have no effect
b. After many years, the plant with the extra chromosomes would eventually go on to form a distinct subpopulation and
possibly a new species.
c. The plant with the extra chromosomes would instantly form a new biological species.
d. None of these are correct
25. Which type of plant does NOT have seeds?
a. gymnosperms
b. angiosperms
c. ferns
d. all of these have seeds
26. Which is true of Lamarck’s evolutionary hypothesis?
a. it was untestable
b. it was testable, but experiments did not support it
c. it was testable, and most experiments supported it
d. it was a type of creationism
27. If individuals from one population mate on a regular basis with individuals from another population, which statement
will be true about these two populations?
a. The allele frequencies of the two groups would tend to remain similar
b. The allele frequencies of the two groups would tend to diverge.
c. The allele frequencies of the two groups are not affected by their mating habits.
28. An important force influencing the shape of the head in the primate line was the need for
a. a keen sense of smell
b. very acute hearing
c. depth perception
d. social interaction
29. The order in which fossils appear in the Earth’s rocks reflects
a. the length of time the species was present on Earth
b. the order the species appeared on Earth
c the comparative sizes of the organisms
d. nothing
30. The process of evolution is speeded up
a. in the ocean
b. in the summer
c. in the arctic
d. on islands
31. Galapagos finches
a. resulted from convergent evolution operating on a variety of dissimilar species to adapt them to similar habitats.
b. resulted from the effects that population growth and natural selection have on geographically isolated populations.
c. resulted from the effects of continuous gene flow between the islands and the mainland over many thousands of years.
d. provide a good example of the artificial selection that is common in equatorial areas.
32. The Sahara desert was partially covered by ocean at one time in the Earth’s history.
a. true
b. false
33. Flying squirrels, which are placental mammals, and marsupial sugar gliders are not closely related but they live in
similar types of habitat and both can glide from tree to tree. They show
a. adaptive radiation
b. homologous structures
c. convergent evolution
d. none of these
34. During human evolution, people who lived in ______ parts of the Earth found dark colored skin to be most adaptive.
a. hot, sunny
b. wet
c. cool, cloudy
35. Endosymbionts are
a. structures residing within our cells which once were free-living bacteria
b. organisms which engulf their food
c. two organisms which help each other survive
d. a type of fungus
36. The high degree of similarity between chimp and human DNA suggests that
a. chimps and humans are in the same genus
b. chimps are descended from humans
c. chimps and humans both descended from a more primitive apelike ancestor
d. humans are descended from chimps
37. Sometimes one type of organism can put selection pressure on another, so they evolve together. For example, flowers
and their pollinators. This is called
a. artificial selection
b. coevolution
c. random mutation
d. mimicry
38. Which of the following is NOT TRUE?
a. Organisms can produce many more offspring than can survive.
b. All organisms of a species show the same characteristics.
c. Among organisms, there is a constant struggle for survival.
d. Individuals that possess favorable characteristics for their environment have a higher rate of survival and produce more
surviving offspring.
39. Which is a characteristic of hominins but not other primates?
a. nails rather than claws
b. no tail
c. depth perception
d. bipedalism
40. Hawaiian silverswords evolved from California tarweeds. Which group would be expected to have more genetic
diversity, the small group of recently evolved silverswords, or the large group of much older tarweeds?
a. the tarweeds
b. the silverswords
c. both should have the same diversity
41. Which of the following environments would select for flight in insects?
a. a cage with slippery walls that insects can’t climb, and an electrified screen at the top
b. a swamp full of frogs that can see and catch flying insects better than crawling insects
c. a forest full of bats the catch insects in flight
d. a cage with no predators, in which food is provided in high dishes
42. Random, non-adaptive changes in a species’ gene pool is called
a. natural selection
b. artificial selection
c. genetic drift
d. none of these
43. Industrial melanism describes the change in moth color from pale to dark after pollution from factories resulted in
coating tree trunks with a layer of dark soot. Which statement is true concerning industrial melanism?
a. After the pollution occurred, moths became dark because soot got on their wings.
b. The dark moths survived better after the pollution because they were not poisoned by the pollutants.
c. Individual moths changed their color in response to the pollution.
d. Some dark moths must have been born in the population even before pollution occurred.
44. Examine the diagram above showing evolutionary relationships among several primates. According to this diagram,
which of the following statements is true?
a. Humans are more closely related to gorillas than they are to common chimps.
b. Orangutans are more closely related to humans than they are to gorillas.
c. Orangutans are less closely related to bonobos than they are to gorillas.
d. None of these are true according to this diagram.
45. Which was the first to use fire?
a. Homo sapiens
b. Homo erectus
c. Homo habilis
d. Australipithicus afarensis
46. Which of the following was the first major development in the evolution of hominins?
a. tool use
b. language
c. binocular vision
d. bipedalism
47. Darwin found his trip to ______ very important to his later work in evolution.
a. the Galapagos Islands
b. Hawaii
c. Indonesia
d. North America
48. How would a genetic bottleneck effect the ability of a species to adapt to changes in its environment?
a. the bottleneck would decrease a species' ability to adapt
b. the bottleneck would increase a species' ability to adapt
c. the bottleneck would neither decrease nor increase a species' ability to adapt
49. Which is an example of the founder effect?
a. all of the deer on an island were killed off, but the population was restored by immigration of a small
number of deer from the mainland
b. when the climate of a desert changed, the main species of mouse evolved into two different species
specializing for slightly different environments.
c. most of the native birds were lost when cats were introduced to a tropical island, but the populations have
recently grown again.
d. an introduced fungus killed off all of the American elm trees in the Midwest.
50. According to natural selection, birds such as cardinals, eagles, and ducks have differently shaped feet due to
a. random changes in foot structure
b. adaptations to different environments and feeding habits
c. differences inherited from their ancestors
d. inheritance of acquired characteristics
51. Which is more likely to be true, according to the film “Great Transformations”?
a. Some fish evolved limbs while living in the water.
b. Fish without limbs started living on land, and then evolved limbs.
Key Midterm 2
Ver. 2.2
1. c
2. d
3. c
4. b
5. a
6. b
7. a
8. d
9. d
10. c
11. b
12. b
13. a
14. c
15. b
16. a
17. a
18. d
19. b
20. b
21. d
22. c
23. a
24. c
25. c
26. b
27. a
28. c
29. b
30. d
31. b
32. a
33. c
34. a
35. a
36. c
37. b
38. b
39. d
40. a
41. d
42. c
43. d
44. c
45. b
46. d
47. a
48. a
49. a
50. b
51. a