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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What was the HMS Beagle, and how was it related to Charles Darwin?
(a) A hot-air balloon he used to survey the land.
(b) A microscope given to him by his wife.
(c) A laboratory created for him by the king.
(d) A ship he travelled on, collecting specimens.

2. Only one out of how many bones is ever fossilized?
(a) A hundred.
(b) Five million.
(c) A billion.
(d) Fifty thousand.

3. How did humans become dispersed across the planet?
(a) Through continental drift.
(b) Using canoes.
(c) Nobody knows for sure.
(d) Through a giant flood.

4. The author states that extinction seems to be:
(a) Because of natural disasters.
(b) Almost exclusively caused by humans.
(c) A rare occurrence on Earth.
(d) A natural part of the life cycle.

5. When was the last dodo killed in Mauritius?
(a) 1490s.
(b) 1750s.
(c) 1680s.
(d) 1530s.

6. What must amino acids do to become protein?
(a) Shrink.
(b) Evolve.
(c) Split.
(d) Link.

7. The author seems to condemn the fact that, over the years, studying wildlife meant what?
(a) Nothing to the average person.
(b) Capturing and killing it.
(c) Destroying the environment.
(d) Mere recreation for the wealthy.

8. What book did paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould write?
(a) Wonderful Life.
(b) Amazing Creatures.
(c) Fantastic Voyage.
(d) Enormous Animals.

9. Approximately how many bacteria live on a square centimeter of human skin?
(a) 4,000,000.
(b) 100,000.
(c) 7,500.
(d) 350.

10. Somewhere between three and two million years ago, how many hominid species co-existed before vanishing abruptly?
(a) Six.
(b) Two.
(c) Nine.
(d) Twelve.

11. Anders Celsius, who designed the Celsius thermometer, was an:
(a) Architect.
(b) Artist.
(c) Engineer.
(d) Astronomer.

12. When entomologist Terry Erwin collected insect samples from 19 rain forest trees, how many different varieties of beetles did he find?
(a) 1,200.
(b) 42.
(c) 150.
(d) 600.

13. Most life on Earth is based on what element?
(a) Iron.
(b) Magnesium.
(c) Hydrogen.
(d) Carbon.

14. The dodo was a:
(a) Large rodent.
(b) Flightless bird.
(c) Miniature whale.
(d) Three-footed lizard.

15. How quickly can bacteria create a new generation?
(a) In forty years.
(b) Within ten minutes.
(c) Within five seconds.
(d) In twenty years.

Short Answer Questions

1. Humans share 98.4 percent of their DNA with:

2. What percentage of the human body consists of water?

3. Trilobites are fossils of what?

4. Scientist Johann Friedrich Miescher is known for:

5. Charles Darwin suggested that evolution was a process taking millions of years, which many met with skepticism because scientists:

(see the answer keys)

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