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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What literary term describes Quammen's use of the image of the Persian rug?
(a) Personification.
(b) Symbolism.
(c) Metaphor.
(d) Simile.

2. What is the first example Quammen cites of a species that has gone extinct?
(a) The Manatee in Florida.
(b) The tiger in Bali.
(c) The passenger pigeon in North America.
(d) The dodo.

3. What was the first species to arrive in Krakatau after the eruption?
(a) A spider.
(b) A crocodile.
(c) A bird.
(d) A snake.

4. What is the genre of The Song of the Dodo?
(a) Non-fiction.
(b) Fiction.
(c) Prophecy.
(d) Fantasy.

5. How do scientists relate data from samples and isolates to larger areas?
(a) Interpolation.
(b) Extrapolation.
(c) Speculation.
(d) Prediction.

6. What did Frank Preston study?
(a) Species distribution.
(b) Species divergence.
(c) Adaptive radiation.
(d) Predator-prey relations.

7. What does Quammen say an island is?
(a) A fundamentally unique environment.
(b) A replica of other ecosystems.
(c) An isolate.
(d) A sample.

8. What does a species have if it has high dispersal ability?
(a) The ability to withstand great environmental changes.
(b) The ability to change their environment to suit their own traits.
(c) The ability to adapt to new environmental conditions.
(d) The ability to move from place to place.

9. How would you describe Quammen's vocabulary?
(a) Technical and precise.
(b) Familiar.
(c) Sophisticated.
(d) Off-hand.

10. What advice did Darwin receive from his friends, with regard to Wallace's work?
(a) To buy Wallace's notes from him, and pledge him to silence.
(b) To work with Wallace and publish a joint theory.
(c) Credit Wallace and share the glory with him.
(d) Publish an outline quickly.

11. What belief of Darwin's has modern science disproved?
(a) That species can only react to their environmental conditions.
(b) That traits a parent acquires during its life are passed down to its young.
(c) That evolve tends toward the perfection of each species.
(d) That science would fill in all the missing links in the evolutionary chain.

12. What is the Guam rail?
(a) A rabbit.
(b) A marsupial.
(c) A bird.
(d) A dog.

13. What literary device describes the questions David Quammen asks about the rug?
(a) Sarcasm.
(b) Rhetorical question.
(c) Leading question.
(d) Aopstrophe.

14. Where did Quammen go to study temrecs?
(a) Madagascar.
(b) New Zealand.
(c) Sri Lanka.
(d) Galapagos.

15. What family does Quammen say hippopotamuses and deer belong to?
(a) Anamnia.
(b) Monorhina.
(c) Marsupials.
(d) Ungulates.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did Philip Darlington propose?

2. What is Quammen really describing as he imagines the hacked up rug?

3. Which scientist compared animals on islands with their counterparts on larger landmasses?

4. What were the first plants to arrive after the eruption of Krakatau?

5. How does Quammen say islands are sometimes formed?

(see the answer keys)

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