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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is so strange about Opabinia that paleontologists found it unbelievable?
(a) The structure.
(b) The proboscis.
(c) The function.
(d) The diagnosis.

2. How does Gould begin Chapter 2: "A Background for the Burgess Shale"?
(a) Explaining what the Burgess Shale represents.
(b) Explaining how scientists divide up historical epochs.
(c) Explaining which animals are in the Burgess Shale.
(d) Explaining the last chapter's conclusion.

3. What was Yohoia specialized for?
(a) An environment.
(b) A species.
(c) A kingdom.
(d) A habitat.

4. How does Leif Størmer spread the Burgess arthropods among the groups in the arthropod phylum?
(a) Hardly.
(b) Widely.
(c) Narrowly.
(d) Minutely.

5. What does Gould strain to emphasize for his audience?
(a) The separation of single cell life was mitigated progress.
(b) The evolution of marine life was unmitigated progress.
(c) The dissipation of marine life was progress.
(d) The evolution of multi-cellular life was not unmitigated progress

Short Answer Questions

1. How many specimens of Opabinia are in the Burgess Shale?

2. What cost comes with accepting Gould's picture of human evolution?

3. What bizarre features does Opabinia possess?

4. What are Marrella and Yohoia?

5. How many general stages of fauna are between the two faunas both eukaryotic and of the Burgess Shale?

Short Essay Questions

1. What are Marrella and Yohoia in terms of evolution?

2. How is the "Cambrian explosion" defined?

3. Name four levels of the taxonomy of life.

4. What did people think Opabinia was and what did Whittington choose to believe about this idea?

5. Why did Whittington approach Yohoia less conservatively?

6. What is the definition of decimation in the relation to the evolution of life?

7. How is the Precambrian Era defined?

8. How did Whittington try to uncover the bodily appendages of Opabinia?

9. What did Leif Størmer decide to do in contrast to Walcott?

10. What is the boundary between the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras famous?

(see the answer keys)

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