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

2. Charles Darwin suggested that evolution was a process taking millions of years, which many met with skepticism because scientists:
(a) Believed Earth to be much younger.
(b) Did not like Darwin.
(c) Believed only birds evolved, not mammals or reptiles.
(d) Thought life on Earth had existed no more than 3,000 years.

3. The early Cambrian period, or the Cambrian explosion, refers to a time how long ago?
(a) 998 million years.
(b) 39 million years.
(c) 540 million years.
(d) 7 million years.

4. Ice ages are caused by:
(a) Unusually cool summers.
(b) Abnormally harsh winters.
(c) Lunar eclipses.
(d) Solar eclipses.

5. What is the highest elevation that humans are able to live and survive on Earth continuously without special accommodations?
(a) 18,000 feet.
(b) 22,000 feet.
(c) 14,000 feet.
(d) 27,000 feet.

Short Answer Questions

1. Of the available land on Earth, how much is suitable for people to live on?

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

3. Which of the following is not a DNA component?

4. What is the current estimate of the number of species that have lived on Earth since the beginning of life on our planet?

5. Each cell of the human body contains what length of DNA?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Why does Bryson say that fossils represent only a tiny fraction of life on Earth?

3. What is cytoplasm?

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

5. Describe what happened when the KT meteor crashed on Earth, killing off the dinosaurs.

6. What does Bryson caution regarding extinction?

7. What does the author say about radioactive waste being dumped into oceans?

8. What is Carl Linnaeus known for?

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

10. How are traits determined genetically?

(see the answer keys)

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