SC 139 - Second Exam 2001

MULTIPLE CHOICE.

On the line to the left, place the letter of the choice that best answers the question.
Three Points Each. NOTE: "e" answers are never the correct answer.

Links on Numbers go to relevant passages in the online textbook.

                    1. The Earth's primordial soup

_______          a. Was produced by the first bacteria
                        b. Was produced by the first plants
                        c. Was rich in oxygen
                        d. Was originally space dust
                        e. Was never a big seller for Campbell's

                    2. Which trait can be found in all of the Kingdoms?
_______          a. Food ingestion                 b. Evolution                 c. Cell nuclei
                        d. Photosynthesis                                     e. Slime

                    3. Which is an acceptable species name?
_______          a. pizzaus huttus                                 b. Burgurus kingius
                        c. Maccus Biggus                                d. hotdogius Charlius
                                             e. Couldn't we call it "Harvey"?

                    4.  Which event in Earth's fossil history comes closest to seeming a "Creation" event?
_______         a. Cambrian Explosion                             b. Movement onto land
                        c. Ice ages                                              d. Dinosaur extinction
                        e. Isn't there some kind of science rule against this kind of question?

                    5. What classification system is set up so new "branches" of the family trees
                                are tied to particular traits?
_______          a. Arboreal                     b. Systematics                     c. Cladistics
                        d. Taxonomy                             e. Trait-branchy Families

                    6. When oxygen built up in Earth's atmosphere, this was not necessarily
                                a good thing because oxygen
                        a. Does not dissolve in water all that well
                        b. Is very chemically reactive and could act as a poison
_______          c. Would have trapped too much heat in the atmosphere
                        d. Would have blocked important parts of sunlight
                        e. Is an unfriendly molecule with a nasty personality

                    7. Which term goes with the idea that life on Earth acts like a kind of
                                 planet-wide "thermostat"?
_______          a. Gaia Hypothesis                             b. Endosymbiont theory
                        c. Heterotroph hypothesis                   d. Biosphere theory
                                    e. As long as nobody finds the controls...

                    8.  The first "living" molecule systems, in order to be considered as very
                                simple life, had to be able to
_______          a. Eat & move             b. Reproduce & move            c. Reproduce & evolve
                        d. Breathe & reproduce            e. Sign up and get a membership card

                    9.  A group of organisms that can live as independent individuals but are
                                usually found together, with different individuals in the group doing
                                different jobs:
_______          a. Endosymbionts                 b. Prokaryotes                 c. Eukaryotes
                        d. Colony                                             e. Boy bands

SHORT ANSWER. 

Answer any five of the following questions for 8 Points Each.
Note: if you answer more than five, only the first five will be corrected.
You can get partial credit on these answers.

1. Photosynthesis might have started at deep-sea hot vents as a mutational combining of which two abilities?

2. What are two different types of energy that could have contributed to the beginnings of Life on the early Earth?

3. What two sorts of environments were probably ideal "staging areas" for the movement of life from water onto the land?

4. Briefly explain why disease is a very unlikely cause of mass extinctions.

5. Name a eukaryote cell feature that is thought to have originally been an independent organism that was taken in and "put to work."

6. When a biologist has a disagreement about a group's classification -

7. The earliest living molecule systems are thought to have been mostly one of three different types of molecules. What are two of those molecule types?

8. Suggest two ways that a molecule could out-compete another molecule.

9. Put them in order, SMALLEST TO LARGEST: Class, Family, Genus, Kingdom, Order, Phylum, Species, Superclass.

10. The heterotroph hypothesis replaced what difficult-to-explain idea, based on the current world's ecosystem?

LONG ANSWER.

Answer any three of the following questions for Eleven Points Each.
Note: if you answer more than three, only the first three will be corrected.
You can get partial credit on these answers.

1. For four of the Five Kingdoms of Living Things, give the proper name of that Kingdom and those traits that set that Kingdom's members clearly apart from the other four.

2. What are four likely events that could have lead to mass extinctions?

3.  For the currently-accepted hypothesis for the Origins of Life on Earth, put the following in order (number them) from earliest to latest.

4. Name four major groups of living things that are considered "land groups."

5. Briefly describe (more than 1-2 words, please) four features of living on land that were significantly challenging to water organisms evolving in that direction.

LINK TO ANSWER KEY

BONUS QUESTIONS. 

Answer as many as you are able. Wrong answers will not result in points being lost from the main exam. You can get partial credit on these answers.

Carolus Linnaeus was the "father" of our biology classification system. What was his actual first name? Three Points.

There is a theory that the first "living" systems could have been a type of clay. For Two Points each, what features or abilities of this type of clay make it possible that this is true?

We have some pretty significant, very early fossils locally. What sorts of fossils are they (Three Points), and where are they locally (Three Points)?

When oxygen built up in the atmosphere, what major evidence did it leave in the fossil layers formed at that time? Three Points.

The symbiont "buddies" that accompanied plants onto land - what necessary service did they provide the plants? Three Points.

The big flying and swimming animals that lived with the dinosaurs were not themselves dinosaurs - what group are they classified in? Three Points.

Why is it highly unlikely that any type of whale or penguin would evolve to a form that could breathe water? Three Points.