1) DDT was once a powerful pesticide.  Today DDT is mostly useless against many insects. What would need to be true for this insecticide to be successful in the long run?

A) Larger doses of DDT should have been applied.

B) All habitats should have received applications of DDT at about the same time.

C) DDT should have been applied more frequently.

D) All individual insects should have been genetically susceptible to DDT.

 

2) “Improving the intelligence of an adult through education will result in that adult’s descendents born with a greater native intelligence.”  This statement is an example of the ideas of

A) Darwin

B) Lamarck

C) eugenics

D) Malthus

 

3) In evolutionary terms, the more closely related two different organisms are, the

A) more similar their habitats are.

B) less similar their DNA sequences are.

C) more recently they shared a common ancestor.

D) less likely they are to be related to fossil forms.

 

 

4) Most copies of harmful recessive alleles in a sexual species are carried by individuals that are

A) haploid.

B) polymorphic.

C) homozygous for the allele.

D) heterozygous

 

5) Darwin had expected the living plants of temperate South America to resemble the plants of temperate Europe, but he was surprised to find that they more closely resembled the plants of South America.  The biological explanation for this observation is most properly associated with the field of

A) geology

B) embryology

C) meterology

D) biogeography

 

6)  Over evolutionary time, many cave-dwelling organisms have lost their eyes.  Tapeworms have lost their digestive systems.  Whales have lost their hind limbs.  How can natural selection account for these losses?

A) Natural selection cannot account for losses, only for innovations.

B) It can account for these losses by the principle of use and disuse.

C) Under particular circumstances that persisted for long periods, each of these structures presented greater costs than benefits.

D) These organisms had the misfortune to experience harmful mutations, which caused the loss of these structures.

 

7)  To observe natural selection's effects on a population, what must be true?

A) One must observe more than one generation of the population.

B) The population must contain genetic variation.

C) Members of the population must increase or decrease the use of some portion of their anatomy.

D) A and C only

E) A and B only

 

8)  A trend toward the decrease in the size of plants on the slopes of mountains as altitudes increase is an example of

A) a cline.

B) a bottleneck.

C) relative fitness.

D) genetic drift.

E) speciation.

 

9)  Through time, the movement of people on Earth has steadily increased. This has altered the course of human evolution by increasing

A) nonrandom reproduction.

B) geographic isolation.

C) genetic drift.

D) mutations.

E) gene flow.

 

 

 

 

 

10)  If the frequency of a particular allele that is present in a small, isolated population of alpine plants should change due to a landslide that leaves an even smaller remnant of surviving plants, then what has occurred?

A) a bottleneck

B) genetic drift

C) macroevolution

D) A and B only  

E) A, B, and C  

 

 

 

The following 3 questions refer to the passage below: 

 

In the year 2500, five male space colonists and five female space colonists (all unrelated to each other) settle on an uninhabited Earthlike planet in the Andromeda galaxy. The colonists and their offspring randomly mate for generations.  All ten of the original colonists had free earlobes, and two were heterozygous for that trait.  The allele for free earlobes is dominant to the allele for attached earlobes.

 

11)  Which of these is closest to the allele frequency in the founding population?

A) 0.1 a,  0.9 A

B) 0.2 a,  0.8 A

C) 0.5 a,  0.5 A

D) 0.8 a,  0.2 A

E) 0.4 a,  0.6 A

 

12)  If four of the original colonists died before they produced offspring, the ratios of genotypes could be quite different in the subsequent generations. This is an example of

A) diploidy.

B) gene flow.

C) genetic drift.

D) disruptive selection.

E) stabilizing selection.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

13)  If one assumes that Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium applies to the population of colonists on this planet, about how many people will have attached earlobes when the planet's population reaches 10,000?

A) 100

B) 400

C) 800

D) 1,000

E) 10,000

 

 

 

 

You are studying three populations of birds that have red and brown alleles for feather color. Population 1 has 10 birds, of which 9 are red and 1 is brown (a recessive trait). Population 2 has 1000 birds. In that population, 900 of the birds are red and 100 are brown. Population 3 has 50 birds, and 45 of them are red and 5 are brown. Use the following options to answer the questions:

 

14)  Which population is most likely to be subject to the red allele becoming a fixed allele in the population?

 

15)  Which population is least likely to be subject to the bottleneck effect?

 

16)  In which population is the frequency of the allele for red feathers lowest?

 

 

A. Population 1

            B. Population 2

            C. Population 3

            D. They are all the same.

            E. It is impossible to tell from the information given.

 

 

17) If a phenotypic polymorphism lacks a genetic component, then

A) the environment cannot affect its abundance.

B) natural selection cannot act upon it to make a population better adapted over the course of generations.

C) it cannot affect an individual's ability to survive.

D) it must exhibit quantitative variation.

E) all of the above.

 

The following 3 questions refer to the hypothetical situation below:

A female fly, full of fertilized eggs, is swept by high winds to an island far out to sea.  She is the first fly to arrive on this island, and the only fly to arrive in this way.  Thousands of years later, her numerous offspring occupy the island, but none of them resemble her.  There are, instead, several species each of which eats only certain type of food.  None of the species can fly, for their flight wings are absent, and their balancing organs (i.e., the halteres) are now used in courtship displays.  The male members of each species bear modified halteres that are unique in appearance to their species.  Females bear vestigial halteres.  The ranges of all of the daughter species overlap.

 

 

18)  Fly species W, found in a certain part of the island, produces fertile offspring with species Y. Species W does not produce fertile offspring with species X or Z. If no other species can hybridize, then species W and Y

A) are still sibling species.

B) shared a common ancestor more recently with each other than either did with the other two species.

C) may merge into a single species if their hybrids remain fertile over the course of many generations.

D) A and B only

E) A, B, and C

 

 

 

 

 

 

19)  If the males' halteres have species-specific size, shape, color, and use in courtship displays, and if the species' ranges overlap, then the speciation events may have been driven, at least in part, by which of the following?

A) autopolyploidy

B) allopolyploidy

C) species selection

D) sexual selection

E) habitat differentiation

 

20)  If the foods preferred by each species are found on different parts of the island, and if the flies mate and lay eggs on their food sources, regardless of the location of the food sources, then the speciation events involving these fly species may have been driven, at least in part, by which of the following?

A) autopolyploidy

B) allopolyploidy

C) species selection

D) genetic drift

E) habitat differentiation

 

21) Ichthyosaurs were aquatic dinosaurs. Fossils show us that they had dorsal fins and tails just as fish do, even though their closest relatives were terrestrial reptiles that had neither dorsal fins nor aquatic tails. The dorsal fins and tails of ichthyosaurs and fish are

A) homologous.

B) examples of convergent evolution.

C) adaptations to a common environment.

D) A and C only

E) B and C only

 

22) Dog breeders maintain the purity of breeds by keeping dogs of different breeds apart when they are fertile.  This kind of isolation is most similar to which of the following reproductive isolating mechanisms?

A) reduced hybrid fertility

B) hybrid breakdown

C) mechanical isolation

D) habitat isolation

E) gametic isolation

 

 

 

 

23) Autopolyploidy is a speciation process that begins with an event during

A) habitat selection.

B) copulation.

C) meiosis.

D) embryonic development.

E) hybridization.

 

24)  In a hypothetical situation, a certain species of flea feeds only on pronghorn antelopes.  In rangelands of the western United States, pronghorns and cattle often associate with one another.  If it should happen that some of these fleas develop a strong preference, instead, for cattle blood and mate only with fleas that, likewise, prefer cattle blood, it is possible that over time ________ will occur.

1. reproductive isolation

            2. sympatric speciation

            3. habitat isolation

            4. prezygotic barriers

            5. cladogenesis

A) 1 only

B) 2 and 3

C) 1, 2, and 3

D) 1, 2, 3, and 5

E) 1 through 5