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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Which body of water holds more than half of the planet's water?
(a) Indian Ocean.
(b) Arctic Ocean.
(c) Pacific Ocean.
(d) Atlantic Ocean.

2. When was the last dodo killed in Mauritius?
(a) 1530s.
(b) 1490s.
(c) 1680s.
(d) 1750s.

3. What helped scientists start accepting the idea of ice ages?
(a) A scientific expedition to Greenland.
(b) An exploration of Antarctica.
(c) A scientific evaluation of changing weather patterns.
(d) An analysis of Siberian winters.

4. In 1871, Lord Kelvin suggested that life on Earth started because of:
(a) Ash falling from volcanic eruptions.
(b) Droplets of water reacting with superheated rocks.
(c) "Seeds" from space arriving by way of a meteor.
(d) Lightning striking pools of chemical "soup."

5. Who was Robert Fitzroy?
(a) Darwin's theology professor.
(b) Captain of the HMS Beagle.
(c) Head of the HMS Beagle Laboratory.
(d) Darwin's first cousin and fellow naturalist.

6. Each cell of the human body contains what length of DNA?
(a) 6 feet.
(b) 2 inches.
(c) 1.5 feet.
(d) 0.5 inch.

7. Of the available land on Earth, how much is suitable for people to live on?
(a) 3 percent.
(b) 12 percent.
(c) 26 percent.
(d) 47 percent.

8. The oldest record of life found so far consists of fossilized traces of microbes discovered where?
(a) Poland.
(b) Iceland.
(c) Greenland.
(d) Finland.

9. In what year did Charles Darwin publish his famous book on natural selection called "On The Origin Of Species"?
(a) 1891.
(b) 1775.
(c) 1913.
(d) 1859.

10. How deep is Earth's atmosphere?
(a) 120 miles.
(b) 30 miles.
(c) 800 miles.
(d) 5 miles.

11. Gregor Mendel, who conducted research on transmittal of traits in pea plants, was a scientist and a:
(a) Politician.
(b) Blacksmith.
(c) Monk.
(d) Soldier.

12. What did Carl Linnaeus develop that is still in wide use today?
(a) Way to differentiate closely related bacteria.
(b) Method to unravel DNA codes.
(c) System for naming lunar features.
(d) Binomial system of genus and species.

13. The troposphere is the layer of atmosphere:
(a) Farthest away.
(b) Closest to the ground.
(c) Just above the highest clouds.
(d) That is coldest.

14. The internal workings of cells are:
(a) Identical from one cell to the next.
(b) Exceedingly simplistic.
(c) Not understood very well.
(d) Understood perfectly.

15. How did humans become dispersed across the planet?
(a) Through continental drift.
(b) Through a giant flood.
(c) Using canoes.
(d) Nobody knows for sure.

Short Answer Questions

1. What percentage of a person's genes are shared with all other humans?

2. When the KT meteor that killed the dinosaurs hit Earth, what percentage of life on the planet perished?

3. Before Charles Darwin wrote his famous book about natural selection, he spent eight years writing about what?

4. What did Carl Linnaeus bring order to through his method of classification?

5. What was the HMS Beagle, and how was it related to Charles Darwin?

(see the answer keys)

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