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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through So Huge A Bignes.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who does Quammen say typically collected insects?
(a) The most devoted scientists.
(b) Ambitious young Americans.
(c) Hunters in the Amazon.
(d) Wealthy Brits.

2. How long after the eruption did it take for 271 species to be counted at Krakatau?
(a) 6 months.
(b) 25 years.
(c) 10 years.
(d) 50 years.

3. What were the first plants to arrive after the eruption of Krakatau?
(a) Mushrooms.
(b) Grasses.
(c) Lichens.
(d) Mosses and ferns.

4. What belief of Darwin's has modern science disproved?
(a) That traits a parent acquires during its life are passed down to its young.
(b) That species can only react to their environmental conditions.
(c) That evolve tends toward the perfection of each species.
(d) That science would fill in all the missing links in the evolutionary chain.

5. Why is Krakatau scientifically important?
(a) It is so isolated.
(b) It is just being populated now.
(c) It is an exception to most rules of population dispersal.
(d) It is a controlled experiment.

Short Answer Questions

1. What assumption does Quammen make at the end of his introductory chapter?

2. How does Quammen say islands are sometimes formed?

3. What ecosystem does Wallace distinguish from ecosystems that developed in isolation?

4. What advice did Darwin receive from his friends, with regard to Wallace's work?

5. What is the literary term that describes Quammen's addressing the reader directly?

(see the answer key)

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