BIOL/PBIO 3333
Genetics
Quiz 1
9/2/13
For the answers to the quiz, click here:
Please give the BEST answer for the following questions, using the digitized answer sheet that will be
distributed on Wednesday. Please use the BLUE side of the answer sheet for these problems.
For questions 1-4, please use the following code:
a) All of the statements are correct
b) I, II, and III are correct
c) I and III are correct
d) II and IV are correct
e) only IV is correct
1. Which of the following statements is/are consistent with ideas concerning the evolution of information
processing in biological systems?
I. RNA may have represented the first information processing nucleic acid, not DNA.
II. RNA has the ability to perform catalytic functions.
III. RNA can mutate and therefore drive evolutionary processes.
IV. RNA has the same base composition as DNA.
2. Which of the following statements characterizing information complexity are true?
I. Proteins are made of 100’s to thousands of different types of amino acids.
II. Humans contain approximately 666 times more genes than found in the E. coli bacterium.
III. A single human gamete cell contains 23 pairs of chromosomes.
IV. The haploid human genome contains approximately 3 x 10 9 base pairs.
3. Which of the following statements is/are consistent with scientific evidence for life on earth?
I. The earliest prokaryotic life forms date to approximately 1-1.2 billion years after Earth’s formation.
II. The earliest eukaryotic life forms appear approximately 4 billion years after the appearance of
prokaryotes.
III. Multicellular organisms appear in the geological record approximately 650 million years ago.
IV. The Cambrian Explosion refers to a meteorite that struck the earth approximately 565 million years
ago, leading to the extinction of many species.
4. Gregor Mendel:
I. Was born in Moravia, to parents who were farmers.
II. Lived as a monk in an Augustinian monastery and therefore had no scientific contact with the outside
world.
III. Made sure his parental lines were true-breeding by observing them for up to eight generations.
IV. Waited 34 years before submitting his work on pea plants to a scientific journal; it was finally
published in 1900.
5. True or false: The recessive phenotype of “wrinkled” seeds, one of the traits studied by Mendel, is due
to a defect in an enzyme involved in branched chain starch metabolism, leading to a buildup of sucrose
in cells carrying two copies of the defective gene.
Questions 6-8 pertain to the following: Assuming Mendelian independent assortment in the cross:
AaBbccDdEe x AaBbccDdEE
6. What proportion of the progeny will genotypically resemble the first parent (AaBbccDdEe) ?
a) 1/32; b) 9/128; c) 27/64; d) 27/256; e) none of the above.
7. What proportion of the progeny will phenotypically resemble the first parent?
a) 1/32; b) 9/128; c) 27/64; d) 27/256; e) none of the above.
8. What proportion of the progeny will phenotypically resemble neither parent?
a) 1/32; b) 9/32; c) 27/64; d) 37/64; e) none of the above.
Questions 9-10 pertain to the following cross, following a rare gene in a human population:
9. The probability that individuals IV-1 and IV-2 would give rise to an affected child would be:
a) ¼; b) ½; c) 1/8; d) 1/12; e)1/24.
10. Suppose individual IV-2 was unaffected. The probability of his marriage giving rise to an affected
child would be:
a) ¼; b) ½; c) 1/8; d) 1/12; e)1/24.