Spring 2003: Lecture Exam 1
This exam consists of 50 multiple-choice questions. Each one has only one right answer. Read each question and all possible answers carefully before answering. Please mark your answers on the Scantron form provided, using only #2 lead pencil. If you erase an answer, make sure you erase it fully, or the machine may mark it incorrect. Check carefully to ensure that your answers are on the correct rows on the Scantron form.
Turn in both the Scantron form and the test paper
when you are finished. Make sure your name is on both. You may
write on the test paper if you wish, but anything you write on
the test paper will not be graded. Good luck.
|Scientists keep up with new developments by reading technical journals, where we publish the results of our studies. I just got the latest issue of a journal called Systematic Biology, which has an article about a group of giant spiders that are found only in the Hawaiian Islands. What's more, each individual species within this group is found only on a single island, or in some cases only on a single part of a single island. The next ten questions will deal with these spiders.||
1. One spider species that lives only on the island of Maui is called Orsonwelles falstaffius. (No, I'm not making that name up! Some biologist must have seen the spider and been reminded of the famous film director and actor. . . ) A formal name like this is known as
a binomial name
2. In the name Orsonwelles falstaffius, the term'Orsonwelles' denotes the
3. The convention of giving organisms two-part Latin names was developed by
4. Orsonwelles falstaffius is protected by an exoskeleton made of chitin, it has a segmented body, and it has four pairs of legs, each of which is divided up into several joints. This means that it is a member of the phylum
5. Which of the following would be an example of another member of the same phylum as Orsonwelles falstaffius?
6. Orsonwelles spiders are found only on the Hawaiian Islands. On the island of Hawaii, volcanoes are still erupting. The molten lava that they produce hardens into a dark, heavy rock called basalt. Yet the island of Kauai, which has no active volcanoes, is also made up of basalt. A geologist could use the principle of uniformitarianism to conclude that
the basalts on Kauai were produced by volcanoes, much like
those on Hawaii now
7. Orsonwelles falstaffius lives on the island of Maui. On the nearby island of Molokai lives a different spider, Orsonwelles macbeth. What would be the first step in a Darwinian evolutionary explanation for how those different spiders came to be where they are now?
A small populations of ancestral spiders dispersed to Hawaii
from somewhere else.
8. This cladogram shows how some Orsonwelles spiders are thought to be related to each other, according to the authors of the article that I read. If the cladogram is correct, what is the relationship betwene O. falstaffius and O. graphicus?
Both evolved from a recent common ancestor.
9. If the cladogram is correct, then O. othello and O. macbeth should
share characters or features in common.
10. Male spiders who try to mate with a female must do a "mating dance" first. Males who don't do this right are usually eaten by the female before they can mate with her. This could cause
11. If I ever own a pizza restaurant, I plan on offering a "Sporocarp Special Pizza" on the menu. This pizza will come with
12. Sporocarps are produced by many members of one of the five kingdoms we talked about. What pizza ingredient also comes from this kingdom?
yeast in the crust dough
13. I also plan to offer a "Mamma Mia Meristem Pizza" to the public. This one would have to be topped with
This one was tricky -- but think: Meristems are found only in plants, so three of the answers can't be right because they're animal products (bacon, sausage, or anchovies). Of the other two options, one's a vegetable (jalapeños), while the other is a bud-like structure (artichokes) -- and buds contain meristems.
14. Suppose that I advertised that my pizzas were not only tasty-they'd cure depression and sexual dysfunction. If a depressed and frustrated person ate my pizza and then felt much happier, this could be an example of
the placebo effect.
15. Suppose that I advertised that my Pepperoni Pandemonium Pizza was proven to cure baldness. This would be an unscientific statement
because science cannot absolutely prove anything.
16. Which of the following is NOT a lipid?
17. What makes a eukaryote a eukaryote, by definition?
The presence of a nucleus.
18. When I debate with creationists, I sometimes hear the argument that "if we're descended from monkeys, then we should just go ahead and act like monkeys." This is an example of
the naturalistic fallacy.
All the other options were things I didn't even cover in lecture -- but I did mention the naturalistic fallacy, a.k.a. the "is vs. ought" problem.
19. In fact, what would an evolutionary biologist consider to be an accurate description of the relationship between humans and monkeys?
Humans and monkeys are descended from a common ancestor.
20. The three-foot-long giant clams of the South Pacific have flesh that looks greenish. This is because the clams have single-celled green algae growing inside their tissues. The algae have nutrients and a place to live, and the clam periodically "harvests" its algae in order to feed itself. This would be a case of
21. The phenomenon of heredity means that living things can
pass on their traits to their offspring.
22. Which of the following is NOT an example of connective tissue?
23. Down at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, there's a place where you can see rock layers that are horizontal lying on top of layers that are tipped about 45 degrees. James Hutton would have used this as evidence
that the Earth is indefinitely old.
24. About 95% of a typical living thing consists of the elements oxygen, nitrogen, and two more chemical elements:
hydrogen and carbon
25. Canned food is supposed to be sterile and safe to eat, but sometimes bacteria grow inside cans and cause spoilage. These bacteria can survive the canning process, which involves steam-heating the food to high temperatures, because they can form ____ which allow them to resist harsh conditions.
26. A typical bacterium and a typical fungus would have the following features in common:
A, B and C (a cell membrane, a cell wall, and organelles)
27. Can you take a make-up exam in this course, if you miss class on the exam date?
28. Cells store information using large molecules called
29. The statement "Nora Jones is a better singer than Britney Spears" is
unscientific, because it's not testable.
This is an aesthetic judgment, which is not the kind of thing the scientific method can handle. But remember: Just because something's unscientific doesn't mean it's not true. . .
30. This shows several reproductive structures of a species of fungus, magnified about 400x. The dark oval structures that are clumped together inside transparent sacs are probably
31. The fungus that is shown here is probably a/an
32. The herbicide oxadiazon (sold under the trade name RonstarTM) does not significantly translocate. In other words, the herbicide does not move through the plant through the
33. The herbicide metribuzine (trade name SencorTM), on the other hand, will spread through an entire plant if you apply it to the roots. This means that it must be carried in the
34. A herbicide called sulfonylurea (trade name CorsairTM) is transported by the plant directly to its meristems. This means that the plant will
35. Many herbicides can be dangerous to humans as well as to weeds. Which of these would you think would be least dangerous to humans, and therefore safest to use on crops?
isoxaben (GalleryTM), which blocks the manufacture
Why? Because this is the only thing that plants do that animals don't.
36. Which statement is part of the logical support for Darwin's theory of evolution?
Organisms vary, and that variation can be passed on to later
37. Which of these lines of evidence did Darwin not use to support the idea that evolution had occurred?
evidence from DNA
Because DNA wasn't known in Darwin's lifetime.
38. The name of Georges Cuvier is associated with the idea that
once-living species have gone extinct.
39. The person who developed uniformitarianism as an approach to studying rocks was
40. The bacterium that causes the disease tetanus, by itself, doesn't make people sick. What does cause the disease is a poison that the bacterium secretes which then travels through the body. This is a(an)
41. Absences in this class that can be excused do not include
hangovers from watching the NCAA Tournament games with the
42. If I asked you to go outside and bring me back something with lots of cellulose in it, you might look for
a piece of wood.
43. Suppose I told you to go outside and find me a bryophyte on a tracheophyte. To fulfill this odd request, you might bring back
moss growing on a tree trunk.
44. If I asked you to find me a saprotroph living on a heterotroph, you might look for
bacteria growing in a dead cat.
45. The disease syphilis is caused by a bacterium called Treponema pallidum. T. pallidum is shaped like a long spiral or coil: we'd call it a
46. There are drugs which stop cells from multiplying by interfering with the division of the nucleus. Would these drugs probably be effective against syphilis?
No, because T. pallidum doesn't have a nucleus.
47. There are drugs that have been effective against syphilis in the past. However, in recent years, many of these drugs are getting less and less effective; it takes higher and higher doses over longer periods of time to treat an infection. This is probably due to
48. Despite over a hundred years of research, no one has yet figured out how to grow T. pallidum in a pure culture, outside of an infected body. This means that syphilis researchers can't use
Why? Because the second one of Koch's postulates is: You have to grow the bacterium in a culture.
49. The relationship between T. pallidum and an infected human would be an example of
50. The current President of the United States is
Elmer Fudd George W. Bush.