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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 old was Charles Darwin when he was invited to serve as a sort of gentleman's companion to the captain of the HMS "Beagle"?

2. How long after the author read an article about the five great mass extinctions that had occurred on the earth did she book a plane to Panama?

3. When Lyell spoke in Boston, how many people tried to get tickets?

4. What did Michael Soule suggest as a name for the era humans lived at the time the author wrote the book?

5. Where was Dob's Linn located?

Short Essay Questions

1. What deforested Easter Island and how was that conclusion derived?

2. What did the great auk look like?

3. Why did Luis Alvarez believe that iridium would help to clock the clay at Gubbio?

4. Why did it seem logical that Walter Alvarez became a scientist?

5. Where were the Panamanian golden frogs housed, when it was discovered they were dying?

6. In Chapter 5, what rocks did Luis Alvarez study and what did he learn?

7. How did Lyell and Darwin view extinction?

8. How did Hall-Spencer work until he was able to get funding for his research?

9. What did Charles Darwin do when he finished Cambridge?

10. What was Bd and how did it kill frogs?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Oceans appeared to be becoming more acidic. What were the consequences of acidity in oceans and what implications did that have for future?

Essay Topic 2

The Alvarezes believed an asteroid caused the end of the Cretaceous period. What led the Alvarezes to believe an asteroid ended the Creataceous period and how did they go about proving their theory?

Essay Topic 3

Scientists speculate about the future of the earth and humans and a Sixth Extinction. Was a Sixth Extinction inevitable or were there ways that a Sixth Extinction could be averted?

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This section contains 690 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample