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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Before Charles Darwin wrote his famous book about natural selection, he spent eight years writing about what?
(a) Grass types.
(b) Barnacles.
(c) Mountains.
(d) Spiders.

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

3. The KT meteor caused dinosaurs to become extinct but paved the way for what to become the new dominant species?
(a) Birds.
(b) Plants.
(c) Mammals.
(d) Insects.

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

5. What percentage of the human body consists of water?
(a) 97.
(b) 32.
(c) 65.
(d) 14.

6. Compared to Homo sapiens, Neanderthals were:
(a) Half as short.
(b) Smaller and weaker.
(c) Larger and sturdier.
(d) Twice as tall.

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

8. In Chapter 30, the author notes that, in the past, some larger species became extinct because:
(a) The earth's gravitational strength changed.
(b) Of their underdeveloped brains.
(c) Humans hunted them to extinction.
(d) They stopped mating.

9. What is the name of the Navy-funded mini submarine often used in undersea explorations?
(a) Alvin.
(b) Chauncy.
(c) Chuck.
(d) Levi.

10. The skeleton "Lucy" found in Ethiopia in 1974 is thought to come from the hominid species:
(a) Kenyanthropus platyops.
(b) Australopithecines.
(c) Sahelanthropus tchadensis.
(d) Homo habilis.

11. Scientist Jean de Charpentier was a specialist on what?
(a) Tsunamis.
(b) Volcanoes.
(c) Evolution.
(d) Glaciers.

12. The internal workings of cells are:
(a) Not understood very well.
(b) Identical from one cell to the next.
(c) Exceedingly simplistic.
(d) Understood perfectly.

13. When the KT meteor that killed the dinosaurs hit Earth, what percentage of life on the planet perished?
(a) 95.
(b) 70.
(c) 15.
(d) 40.

14. Scientists believe that our planet is currently in a period of what?
(a) Steadily increasing temperatures.
(b) Relative cold within a temperate age.
(c) Declining temperatures.
(d) Relative warmth within an ice age.

15. What helped scientists start accepting the idea of ice ages?
(a) An exploration of Antarctica.
(b) A scientific evaluation of changing weather patterns.
(c) An analysis of Siberian winters.
(d) A scientific expedition to Greenland.

Short Answer Questions

1. At this time, how many plant and animal species are becoming extinct per week?

2. Anders Celsius, who designed the Celsius thermometer, was an:

3. In times past, Earth was:

4. The author states that extinction seems to be:

5. What percentage of a person's genes are shared with all other humans?

(see the answer keys)

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