From Dawn To Darwin Evolution Practice Test

If necessary, review:

• Important Theories About the Origin of Life Help
• The First Living Organisms Help
• Charles Darwin and the Theory of Evolution Help

From Dawn to Darwin Evolution Practice Test

Directions: A good score is at least 8 correct answers out of these 10 questions.

1. Cosmic Order is best described as:

(a) Just another version of Biological Order

(b) A pattern of organization that occurs within the Universe

(c) Lack of any apparent organizing framework throughout the Cosmos

(d) Giant clouds of dust and gas in outer space

2. The Dawn of Life probably:

(a) Occurred before the surface of Planet Earth began to cool and rain fell

(b) Prevented evolution from progressing any farther

(c) Started Biological Order as we know it

(d) Happened only 10 million years ago

3. A heavy rain falls. Overnight, a dry, parched field becomes a swampy area behind your house. The next night, you hear thousands of frogs loudly croaking. If you lived before the time of the scientist Francesco Redi, you would likely conclude that:

(a) Alien frogs dropped out of the sky during the rainstorm!

(b) The frogs appeared suddenly in the usually dry field by spontaneous generation

(c) The frogs mutated from micro-organisms

(d) “Survival of the fittest” was at work

4. Biogenesis is the theory that:

(a) Living organisms are only produced from other living organisms

(b) Dead animals can give rise to living ones

(c) Sometimes plants can change into animals, and vice versa

(d) Life first arose from a primordial soup

5. “How did the very first life come into being on our planet?” According to the chapter, your answer to this question would be that:

(a) Ancient dinosaurs changed back into primitive micro-organisms

(b) The Ice Age froze everything solid, but then living things thawed out

(c) Natural sources of energy (such as lightning and hot lava) sparked a fundamental change in the primordial soup of complex organic compounds within ancient oceans

(d) Boiling hot lava fields changed automatically into primitive bacteria cells

6. These help provide the first solid evidence of life within the fossil record:

(a) Stromatolites

(b) Phagocytes

(c) Fine particles of sediment

(d) The bones of jawless fishes

7. Multicellular organisms:

(a) Probably evolved into unicellular ones

(b) Are generalists for the processes of life

(c) Were the likely descendants of unicellular organisms

(d) Only occasionally contain eukaryote cells

8. According to the impact hypothesis, the dinosaurs became extinct because:

(a) Jungles took over too much of the planet, thereby destroying dinosaur habitat

(b) The Earth cooled and dried out, due to a change in the tilt of its axis

(c) A huge comet or asteroid hit the Earth with such force that it created a massive cloud of dust and debris in the atmosphere

(d) The heat produced by the impact of a fiery comet melted both the North and South Poles

9. The Cenozoic Era:

(a) Is often nicknamed “The Age of Giant Amphibians”

(b) Has alternatively been called “The Age of the Dinosaurs”

(c) Occurred when the mammals replaced the dinosaurs as the dominant organisms on our planet

(d) Was finished long before human beings walked the Earth

10. According to Charles Darwin’s version of the Theory of Evolution:

(a) The fossil record strongly suggests that simpler organisms appeared after larger, more complex organisms

(b) Species competing for the same available resources in the environment went through a process of natural selection over time

(c) The strange animals of the Galapagos Islands were not fully adapted to their ecosystem

(d) A particular pattern of Biological Order has nothing whatsoever to do with the successful adaptation of a particular species to its environment

Answers:

1. B

2. C

3. B

4. A

5. C

6. A

7. C

8. C

9. C

10.B