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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How does Quammen find fault with other scientists studying extinctions?
(a) By saying that they have only been talking to each other.
(b) By saying that their fundamental premises were ungrounded.
(c) By saying that their nostalgia clouds their findings.
(d) By saying that their vocabulary is insufficient to the problems.

2. What were Frank Preston's findings in plotting the distribution of species in island habitats?
(a) A random relationship between size of island and commonness of species.
(b) A direct proportion to represent commonness of species.
(c) A bell curve to represent commonness of species.
(d) An indirect proportion to represent commonness of species.

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

4. What family does Quammen say hippopotamuses and deer belong to?
(a) Monorhina.
(b) Anamnia.
(c) Ungulates.
(d) Marsupials.

5. Where did Quammen go to study temrecs?
(a) Sri Lanka.
(b) Galapagos.
(c) New Zealand.
(d) Madagascar.

6. What does David Quammen invoke as he describes cutting the rug?
(a) The despair of the threads.
(b) The outrage of the rug weavers.
(c) The dissolution of the design.
(d) The joy of the scissors.

7. Where is Krakatau?
(a) Italy.
(b) Tunisia.
(c) Malay Archipelago.
(d) Japan.

8. What evidence did Wallace site to suggest problems with the special creation theory?
(a) That human beings could be found in every climate.
(b) That when species were displaced, they sometimes thrived in the new territory.
(c) That some ecological niches went unfilled.
(d) That species had adapted to every different environment on earth.

9. What ecosystem does Wallace distinguish from ecosystems that developed in isolation?
(a) Ecosystems that were simplified over time.
(b) Ecosystems where people had introduced new species.
(c) Ecosystems where great complexity developed out of local conditions.
(d) Ecosystems that had been part of a larger land mass, but broke away.

10. How does Quammen say lizards probably arrived at Krakatau?
(a) Came with humans.
(b) Flew.
(c) Swam.
(d) They developed independently from amphibians there.

11. Who is Philip Darlington?
(a) A writer.
(b) A biologist.
(c) A sailor.
(d) A mathematician.

12. How did humans hurt the dodo population directly?
(a) By building on their nesting grounds.
(b) By gathering their eggs and hunting them.
(c) By killing the trees that supplied them with food.
(d) By killing them for sport.

13. What is a sample?
(a) The list of species in an area.
(b) The data that comes from studying an area, large or small.
(c) The set of interrelationships that govern a particular climate and ecosystem.
(d) A defined area of a large system.

14. What literary term describes Quammen's use of the image of the Persian rug?
(a) Personification.
(b) Metaphor.
(c) Simile.
(d) Symbolism.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Quammen say Wallace developed in South America?

2. Who does Quammen say typically collected insects?

3. What were the first plants to arrive after the eruption of Krakatau?

4. What doe Quammen say about this rule?

5. Which scientist compared animals on islands with their counterparts on larger landmasses?

(see the answer keys)

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