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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What was Opabinia's frontal nozzle not?
(a) Part of its head.
(b) A proboscis.
(c) A second mouth.
(d) A carapace.

2. When did Whittington publish his first monograph?
(a) 1969.
(b) 1987.
(c) 1974.
(d) 1971.

3. What pushed Whittington beyond the idea he struggled under?
(a) Yohoia.
(b) Wiwaxia.
(c) Opabinia.
(d) Marella.

4. What did Whittington attempt to do to many of the new species found in the Burgess Shale?
(a) Dissect them for a museum show.
(b) Reproduce them.
(c) Classify them into an already existing taxonomy.
(d) Cyrogenically preserve them.

5. What did Marella have that no trilobite shared?
(a) Two backs.
(b) Appendages.
(c) Twenty ligaments.
(d) Large incisors.

6. What kind of drama does Gould wish to recount that led to rejecting Walcott's interpretation?
(a) Emotional.
(b) Spiritual.
(c) Intellectual.
(d) Physical.

7. What type of evidence concerning Opabinia is considered to be decisive?
(a) Its structure.
(b) Its classification.
(c) Its distinctiveness.
(d) Its guts.

8. What did Marrella and Yohoia still appear to be?
(a) Crustaceans.
(b) Arthropods.
(c) Unknown creatures.
(d) Vertebrates.

9. What do the levels range from in the taxonomy of life?
(a) Phyla to species.
(b) Phyla to classes.
(c) Orders to genera.
(d) Kingdom to species.

10. Which creatures are representative of these four classes that survived the first great extinction?
(a) Dragonfly, a fossil eurypterid, a crab and a trilobite
(b) Snails, crabs and dragonflies.
(c) Eurypterid, mollusk, sea cucumbers.
(d) Dragonfly, crabs, and trilobites.

11. What does Gould's new interpretation emphasize about human evolution?
(a) It has no single order.
(b) It has a single order.
(c) It has five orders.
(d) It has two orders.

12. What kind of paradigm does Gould believe has not been communicated to the public?
(a) A leftover historical paradigm.
(b) A new research paradigm.
(c) A provoking platonic paradigm.
(d) A controversial conservative paradigm.

13. What did the "death of the dinosaurs" boundary make possible?
(a) The development of large tortoises and sharks.
(b) The development of large mammals like humans.
(c) The development of smaller mammals.
(d) The development of rodents.

14. How many specimens of Opabinia are in the Burgess Shale?
(a) Four.
(b) Eight.
(c) Ten.
(d) Six.

15. What did Walcott think Opabinia was just another one of?
(a) Plant.
(b) Mollusk.
(c) Anemone.
(d) Crustacean.

Short Answer Questions

1. What comprises the first 4 billion years of Earth's history?

2. What was Whittington's first monograph about?

3. How many levels are there in the taxonomy of life?

4. How does Gould begin Chapter 2: "A Background for the Burgess Shale"?

5. Why did Whittington dissect Opabinia?

(see the answer keys)

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