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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. How did Wallace put Darwin in a tough spot, according to Quammen?

2. What kinds of animals did Philip Darlington look at?

3. How did sailors describe the dodo?

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

5. What is the tone of Quammen's writing in the opening chapter?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Quammen use the island of Tasmania as an example of?

2. What do we know about the dodo?

3. What concept did Wallace develop in the Malay Archipelago?

4. What findings of Michael Soule's does Quammen cite at the end of Chapter 4, "Rarity Unto Death"?

5. What is the first explanation Quammen offers for the relationship between island size and species count?

6. What was MacArthur and Wilson's contribution to island biogeography?

7. What is the difference between an isolate and a sample, according to Quammen?

8. What is trophic cascade?

9. What examples does Quammen use of dispersal ability?

10. What is dispersal ability and why is it important?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is the genre of 'The Song of the Dodo'? Is it a travel narrative? Is it primarily a memoir? A book-length article about a scientific field? Is it a scientific treatise?

Essay Topic 2

Why does Quammen minimize Darwin's accomplishment as the founder of the theory of evolution? What does he benefit by debunking Darwin's accomplishment? Is it attraction to the underdog position, do you think? Was Wallace rely a superior scientist? Is Quammen just being contentious?

Essay Topic 3

Is Quammen somehow at fault for not making solid proposals for how to mitigate switch loss? Is his informative book somehow flawed for failing to make recommendations? Debate this proposition using examples from the book.

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