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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How did humans hurt the dodo population indirectly?
(a) By collecting too many dodos for scientific study.
(b) By breaking up dodo populations for colonization to other islands.
(c) By introducing competitors for food.
(d) By competing for the dodo's food supply themselves.

2. How would you describe Quammen's style?
(a) Linear.
(b) Pedantic.
(c) Patient and thorough.
(d) Disjointed.

3. What does Quammen use as an example of an island?
(a) Yellowstone national park.
(b) The komodo dragon's territory.
(c) Mountaintop ecosystems.
(d) Indonesia.

4. How did humans hurt the dodo population directly?
(a) By gathering their eggs and hunting them.
(b) By killing the trees that supplied them with food.
(c) By killing them for sport.
(d) By building on their nesting grounds.

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

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

7. When does Quammen say his field became a field of inquiry?
(a) With Darwin.
(b) With MacArthur and Wilson.
(c) With Alfred Wallace.
(d) With Quammen.

8. How did sailors describe the dodo?
(a) Canny.
(b) Stupid.
(c) Swift.
(d) Cagey.

9. What assumption does Quammen make at the end of his introductory chapter?
(a) That people don't know anything about his field.
(b) That people are hungry for economic growth, even at the expense of ecosystems.
(c) That people are outraged about the disappearance of species.
(d) That people are willing to change their habits in order to save ecosystems.

10. What doe Quammen say about this rule?
(a) It required enormous statistical calculations to arrive at it.
(b) It is still not established as accepted science.
(c) It is highly controversial.
(d) It is intuitive, but also more complicated.

11. Who is Philip Darlington?
(a) A mathematician.
(b) A sailor.
(c) A writer.
(d) A biologist.

12. What did Philip Darlington propose?
(a) A set of exceptions to this rule.
(b) A mathematical ratio between island area and number of species.
(c) A correction that makes this rule broadly applicable.
(d) A set of formula that measure biodiversity.

13. Where did Wallace travel after the Amazon?
(a) Australia.
(b) Galapagos islands.
(c) The Malay Archipelago.
(d) Palestine.

14. How does Quammen describe the komodo dragon's territory?
(a) As the whole history of its development in the ecosystem.
(b) As an island within an island.
(c) As any environment that satisfies its survival requirements.
(d) As inseparable from the islands where it developed.

15. What kinds of animals did Philip Darlington look at?
(a) Insects.
(b) Mammals.
(c) Reptiles.
(d) Birds.

Short Answer Questions

1. How many species of the animal Philip Darlington studied did an island of four square miles possess?

2. What belief of Darwin's has modern science disproved?

3. Why is Krakatau scientifically important?

4. What is a sample?

5. How does Quammen find fault with other scientists studying extinctions?

(see the answer keys)

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