BI 171 - First Exam - 2005

Links go to relevant passages of the online book

Multiple Choice.

Place the letter of the choice that best answers the question on the line to the left.
Two Points Each. NOTE: "e" answers are never the correct answer.

 

_______ 1.  The roles available to organisms in ecosystems are know as

                    a. Slots                     b. Species                     c. Niches
                    d. Clades                         e. Employment opportunities

 

_______ 2.  An advantage to high chromosome number is

                    a. It increases variation                         b. They sort out more reliably
                    c. More dominant alleles                       d. Fewer mutations are produced
                                    e. Well, it’s high, which is, like, higher...

 

_______ 3.  The theory of Evolution by Natural Selection says that change is driven by

                    a. Cellular reactions                 b. Circumstances            c. A basic plan
                    d. The fossil record                                e. A small bus

 

_______ 4.  The modern understanding of genetic dominance connects the effect to

                    a. Effects of proteins                                     b. Evolutionary superiority
                    c. Probability of inheritance                            d. All of these
                                        e. Somebody named Gene taking over

 

_______ 5.  Which aspects of scientists relate most closely to Post-Modernism?

                    a. Prejudices                 b. Logic                c. Use of equipment
                    d. Need to label                e. The ones with the most innovative fences

 

_______ 6.  A submarine is ___________ to a fish.

                    a. Neither analogous nor homologous
                    b. Both analogous and homologous
                    c. Homologous but not analogous
                    d. Analogous but not homologous
                    e. Um, a sandwich, but not in a good way

 

_______ 7.  Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny was an idea about

                    a. Classification systems                             b. Microscopic imaging
                    c. Embryo development                             d. Genetic mutations
                            e. Saying things so no one could understand them

 

_______ 8.  When a virus invades a host cell, in many cases it needs to get what inside?

                    a. The entire virus                                 b. All of the viral enzymes
                    c. The viral casing                                 d. The viral DNA
                                        e. Several suitcases and a backpack

 

 

_______ 9.  Which is one of the critical aspects of a scientific hypothesis?

                    a. It makes sense                                         b. It leads to specific predictions
                    c. It agrees with established science               d. It gets peer reviewed
                                        e. No normal person can understand it

 

_______ 10. An evolutionary rate characterized by quick shifts with long stable periods
                                    between is known as

                    a. Accelerated             b. Catastrophic            c. Mercurial
                    d. Punctuated                    e. Anything but gender-connected

 

_______ 11.  Sectioning is done

                    a. During evolutionary development             b. As a microscope prep
                    c. During cell division                                 d. In classification
                                    e. When you really would rather be sleeping

 

_______ 12.  Sexual selection is a pattern of

                    a. Evolutionary change                  b. Reproductive type
                    c. Cell production                         d. Behavior
                                e. Plotting for many movies

 

_______ 13.  Which could be considered between unicellular and multicellular?

                    a. Epicellular                 b. Genetic             c. Colonial
                    d. Microcellular                         e. "And"

 

_______ 14.  The modern definition of species depends upon

                    a. Ability to reproduce                     b. Ability of offspring to reproduce
                    c. Natural reproductive behavior       d. Genetic uniqueness
                        e. How nice something looks stuffed and mounted

 

_______ 15.  The resolution of a microscope is most closely associated with

                    a. Staining             b. Transmission            c. Magnification
                    d. Focusing                        e. What changes every New Year’s

 

_______ 16.  When young wolves inherit territory from their parents, biologically

                    a. It is not considered inheritance
                    b. Territory is considered a genetic trait
                    c. The term "epigenetic" is applied
                    d. The passage of territory is considered asexual
                    e. The taxes are lowered because they’re, well, wolves...

 

_______ 17.  Which is a provision of the cell theory?

                    a. Cells are made up of atoms and molecules
                    b. Cells can only be produced from related cells
                    c. Cells have membranes and walls
                    d. There are limits to how large cells can be
                    e. Cells tend to be little boring things

 

_______ 18.  Sex linkage is applied to

                    a. Traits that produce different genders
                    b. Traits only associated with sexual reproduction
                    c. The evolutionary relationship between survival and reproduction
                    d. Genes found on sex chromosomes
                    e. Messages in at least 50% of all car commercials

 

Short Answer.

Pick NINE questions to answer in the spaces provided.
NOTE: if you answer MORE than nine, only the first nine will be corrected.
Four Points each. Partial credit is possible.

1.  What are two general features of living things that viruses generally don’t have?
 

 
2.  Explain how either one of the two types of genetic redundancy works.

 

 
3.  What is a major advantage that electron microscopes have over light microscopes?

 

 
4.  What is the null hypothesis?

 

 
5.  Give two of the rules for binomial nomenclature.
 

 
6.  Give two facts about Alfred Russel Wallace that relate to his place in biology history.
 

 
7.  Lamarck is know for two ideas that are now largely discredited. What were they?
 

 
8.  Science prefers quantitiative data, which is -

 

 

 Why the preference?

 

 
9.  Put the following groups in order from the largest to the smallest: Class, Family, Genus, Kingdom, Order, Phylum, Species, Subclass, Superfamily.
1 4 7
2 5 8
3 6 9
10.  Briefly explain the difference in approach between systematics and cladistics.

 

 
11.  In microscopes, what is the basic difference in set-up between -
Scanning

Microscope

 Transmission

Microscope
12.  Briefly explain reductionism’s role in science.

 

 
13.  The fossil record is sometimes criticized for being "incomplete," but why does the nature of how things fossilize almost require the record to have gaps?

 

 
14.  Briefly explain what confounding factors are in experimentation.

 

 
15.  What is a possible application from knowing a genome?

 

 
16.  Briefly explain the leading theory for why cells seem to have a size limitation.

 

 

Long Answer.

Select and answer completely any four of the following questions.
Note: if you answer more than four, only the first four will be corrected.
Seven Points Each. Partial credit is possible.

1.  List four of the six modern "standard" Kingdoms by proper names, and give the features that make each Kingdom distinct from the other 5.

 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 

2.  What are three aspects of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection that needed to be "fixed" (because they turned out to not fit observed patterns in Nature) or were eventually updated with newly-discovered information?
 

 
 

 
 

 

3. List four traits that any organisms should have to be considered "living."
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
4.  Briefly describe four discoveries in the history of genetics, and they need to be in chronological order in the numbered boxes.
1

 

 2

 
3

 

 4

 
5. Describe how each might work in a study of a new type of anti-itch cream.
CONTROL
SINGLE-

BLIND
DOUBLE-

BLIND
6. Answer the following questions about DNA -
How do the components (Adenine, Cytosine, Guanine, Thymine) pair up?

 
How does the gene code sequence relate to the coded protein sequence?

 
Which component changes / mutations are least dangerous, and (briefly) why?

 
7.  Before he went on his Beagle voyage, Darwin already had in his head concepts that would figure into his theories. Describe three.
 

 
 

 

Link to Answer Key

 

 

BONUS QUESTIONS

Answer as many or as few as you wish. You can't lose points on the rest of the exam by getting these wrong. Partial credit is possible.

What’s the newest "hot area" of biology? Three Points.

 

How do Laws vary between physics and biology? Three Points.

 

For Three Points Each, give up to two examples of what are considered "soft" sciences.

 

The ancient Greeks recognized three Natural Kingdoms. Two of them are still part of the Kingdom system - what was the other one? Three Points.

 

Phylocode is a new application for what part of biology? Three Points.

 

What is a common approach by which cells increase their surfaces but not their volumes? Three Points.

 

How was science associated with religion in modern science’s early days? Three Points.

 

 

Where did Wallace formulate and write up his main evolutionary theories? Three Points.

 

Why did Gregor Mendel wind up doing his work with pea plants? Three Points.

 

 

In general, which experimental animals are used by early genetic researchers in a) the U.S., and b) Europe? Three Points Each.

 

 

 		  

BI 171

Michael McDarby

 

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