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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. With so many hominid species existing in the past, why did only one survive?
(a) Climate change.
(b) Larger brain.
(c) Greater capacity for compassion.
(d) Nobody knows.

2. What percentage of the human body consists of water?
(a) 32.
(b) 14.
(c) 97.
(d) 65.

3. Before Charles Darwin wrote his famous book about natural selection, he spent eight years writing about what?
(a) Spiders.
(b) Grass types.
(c) Mountains.
(d) Barnacles.

4. Approximately how many bacteria live on a square centimeter of human skin?
(a) 100,000.
(b) 4,000,000.
(c) 7,500.
(d) 350.

5. At this time, how many plant and animal species are becoming extinct per week?
(a) 50 to 80.
(b) 1 to 2.
(c) 600 to 1,000.
(d) 100 to 200.

Short Answer Questions

1. The first hand axe was shaped with a stone how many years ago?

2. What is a biped?

3. When was the last dodo killed in Mauritius?

4. What must amino acids do to become protein?

5. What book did paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould write?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the author say about bacteria and humans, particularly their interaction?

2. Throughout the history of Earth, what are some of the causes of different species going extinct?

3. Describe the fossilized traces of microbes found in Greenland.

4. What is cytoplasm?

5. How long do human cells live?

6. What does the author say about oxygen and the highest elevations people can live at?

7. What does Bryson caution regarding extinction?

8. What did scientists find in the Burgess Shale of British Columbia?

9. What did Charles Darwin do on the HMS Beagle?

10. How are scientific discoveries challenging the understanding of human evolution?

(see the answer keys)

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