View a FREE sample

This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through The Man Who Knew Islands.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is Lovejoy's term for the ecological crisis?
(a) Relaxation to equilibrium.
(b) Faunal collapse.
(c) Ecosystem decay.
(d) Catastrophic deterioration.

2. What is Quammen really describing as he imagines the hacked up rug?
(a) Fragmented ecosystems.
(b) Loss of communication from one region to the next.
(c) Loss of environment to development.
(d) The spread of pathogens.

3. What tragedy struck Wallace on his return to England?
(a) He became sick and nearly died.
(b) Someone else arrived in England a few weeks before him with similar specimens.
(c) He lost his specimens and notes in a shipwreck.
(d)

4. What does Quammen say makes his field important?
(a) Because it is holistic and global in scope.
(b) Because it accounts for events other fields cannot account for.
(c) Because island ecosystems are a good metaphor for ecosystems as a whole.
(d) Because it has predicted recent phenomena.

5. When does Quammen say his field became a field of inquiry?
(a) With MacArthur and Wilson.
(b) With Darwin.
(c) With Alfred Wallace.
(d) With Quammen.

Short Answer Questions

1. How many pieces does Quammen ask the reader to imagine the rug being cut into?

2. What important book did Robert McArthur and Edward Wilson publish in 1967?

3. What does David Quammen invoke as he describes cutting the rug?

4. What literary device describes the questions David Quammen asks about the rug?

5. What does Quammen says Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace had in common?

(see the answer key)

This section contains 279 words (approx. 1 page at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample