Crossing over
a. can occur between loci on nonhomologous chromosomes.
b. can occur between alleles on the same chromosome.
c. increases genetic variation.
d. decreases genetic variation.
Why does natural selection favor alleles that kill individuals late in life?
a. Because genes eventually mutate and grow old, so the elderly must perish to increase
group fitness
b. Because natural selection favors young alleles for reproduction
c. Because individual fitness is determined early in life
d. Because genes that enhance early fertility at the cost of a shortened life span increase
individual fitness
Imagine you are a capuchin monkey that has been enlisted to support another
groupmate. Which of the following do you support in an aggressive interaction?
a. A female.
b. A distant associate.
c. A subordinate.
d. None; they are on their own.
Paranthropus robustus
a. was about 4.5 ft. tall and bipedal
b. was not fully bipedal.
c. had very small molars.
d. had very large incisors.
Hamilton’s rule states that
a. altruism evolves only among nonkin.
b. selfish genes swamp altruistic genes.
c. altruistic behavior is favored if the cost to the actor is less than the benefit to the
recipient, devalued by the degree of relatedness.
d. altruistic behavior is favored if the benefits to the actor are greater than the costs to
the recipients, devalued by their degree of relatedness.
Which of the following is NOT a feature associated with bipedal locomotion?
a. A femur angled inwards toward the body
b. Arched feet
c. Narrow and long pelvis
d. A foramen magnum positioned more anteriorly (centered under the skull)
A femur from a bipedal primate ________ than that of a quadrupedal primate.
a. has more torque
b. is shorter
c. is angled inward more
d. is angled outward more
Genetic drift is strongest in
a. small populations.
b. large populations.
c. medium-size populations.
d. populations out of equilibrium.
Meat eating may require food sharing because
a. sharing reduces the risks associated with hunting by averaging returns over time.
b. meat is unhealthy, so sharing spreads out the negative effects of consuming it.
c. hunting is a way of showing off.
d. food sharing reduces levels of cooperation, and hunting is a task best done alone.
What genotype do true-breeding plants bearing yellow seeds have?
a. aa
b. aA
c. Aa
d. AA
Anatomically modern humans appeared between
a. 2,000 and 1,000 years ago.
b. 20,000 and 10,000 years ago.
c. 200,000 and 90,000 years ago.
d. 2 million and 1 million years ago.
Adaptations are defined as the components of an organism that
a. allow it to survive and reproduce.
b. allow it to evolve more rapidly.
c. occur by random chance alone.
d. absolutely never change.
If the DNA codon for an amino acid is ACC, what are the mRNA and its tRNA
anticodon, respectively?
a. TGG; UCC
b. GGT; CCA
c. GTG; CAC
d. UGG; ACC
Before Charles Darwin proposed his theory of natural selection by adaptation, many
scholars argued that adaptations are proof that
a. evolution is a process based on random chance alone.
b. because of their ability to adapt quickly, humans are better than all other species.
c. God exists and designs all things to fit a specific purpose.
d. there is no way that God can exist.
Homo ergaster appeared in the fossil record about
a. 180 million years ago.
b. 18 million years ago.
c. 1.8 million years ago.
d. 18,000 years ago.
Australopithecus africanus matured
a. more slowly than modern humans.
b. at about the same rate as modern humans.
c. more quickly than modern humans.
d. at variable rates, depending on geographic location.
Vervet monkeys and baboons appear to know
a. which monkey provides the best alarm calls.
b. how to deceive other monkeys to gain hidden food.
c. rank relationships among other individuals.
d. how to choose related individuals from pictures.
Charles Darwin is known for his revolutionary argument that
a. plants and animals are not designed by God and do not change over time.
b. plants and animals change slowly over time.
c. fossil plants and animals changed, but existing plants and animals do not.
d. plants and animals are created by chance and then evolve through divine
intervention.
Sickle-cell anemia
a. is caused by a lack of protein.
b. is caused by a lack of iron.
c. causes unusually shaped red blood cells.
d. causes unusually shaped blood vessels.
Sympatric speciation occurs when two populations
a. experience different mutations.
b. living in the same location experience different selection pressures.
c. form fertile hybrids.
d. are physically separated from each other.
________ had large, robust bodies with relatively long arms and legs and may have
been adapted to run long distances.
a. Homo habilis
b. Australopithecus africanus
c. Homo ergaster
d. Paranthropus boisei
________ foods come from things that do not move but are protected in some way.
a. Hunted
b. Extracted
c. Collected
d. Provisioned
Consider species A, B, and C, who share a knuckle-walking common ancestor. Species
A and B are bipedal. Species C is a knuckle walker. Which of the following is most
likely to be true?
a. A and B are more closely related to each other than to C.
b. A and C are more closely related to each other than to B.
c. C and B are more closely related to each other than to A.
d. There is not enough information to determine the most likely relationship.
Chimpanzees and capuchins likely lack complex cultural repertoires for the all the
following reasons EXCEPT
a. not all individuals copy behaviors accurately.
b. individuals settle on only one technique once it is learned.
c. individuals do not blindly copy all of the behavior’s details.
d. individuals are unable to imitate behaviors.
Taphonomy is the study of
a. how stone tools are made.
b. how to tell fossil plants from fossil animals.
c. tree rings.
d. what happens to an organism’s remains from the time of death to the time the remains
are found by scientists.
________ is based on an effect of high-energy nuclear particles traveling through rock.
a. Radioactive decay
b. Electron-spin-resonance
c. Thermoluminescence
d. Carbon-14
Compared with the Eocene, the Oligocene was characterized by
a. continued separation of North and South America.
b. colder, more variable global temperatures.
c. a change in the Northern Hemisphere from deciduous to tropical forests.
d. warmer, more consistent temperatures.
Genetic drift can
a. cause isolated populations to become more similar to one another.
b. cause isolated populations to diverge from one another.
c. lead to genotyping of populations.
d. lead to karyotyping of populations.
Which of the following statements is likely true regarding the Olduvai sites?
a. There is definitive evidence of “home bases” at Olduvai Gorge.
b. Paleoanthropologists are not able to distinguish between animal tooth marks and
stone-tool marks on animal bones from Olduvai Gorge.
c. Taphonomic evidence suggests that the Oldowan hominids were sometimes hunters
and sometimes scavengers.
d. There are no sites at Olduvai that are simply carnivore kill or cache sites.
Correlated characters
a. can occur because some genes affect more than one character.
b. change independently.
c. are always positively related.
d. make natural selection longer.
You are given a jawbone of an unknown primate, and you notice that the anterior and
posterior cusps of the lower molars form two parallel ridges. What might you conclude
from this observation?
a. This is the mandible of a frugivore.
b. This is the mandible of a folivore.
c. This is the mandible of a cercopithecine.
d. This is the mandible of an ape.
About 300,000 years ago in Europe some features of H. heidelbergensis included
double-arched browridges, average cranial capacity of 1,390 cc, and a face that bulges
out, or is prognathic, about midway. These features are shared with
a. H. ergaster
b. H. erectus
c. Neanderthals
d. modern H. Sapiens