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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Quammen say makes animals smaller on islands?
(a) Larger predators.
(b) Smaller food supply.
(c) Smaller territories.
(d) Larger food supply.

2. How do scientists relate data from samples and isolates to larger areas?
(a) Extrapolation.
(b) Speculation.
(c) Interpolation.
(d) Prediction.

3. What function does the first chapter serve?
(a) Prophecy.
(b) Explanation.
(c) Introduction.
(d) Prediction.

4. Why was the thylacine killed off?
(a) Because invasive species competed more successfully for food.
(b) Because its eggs were collected by sailors.
(c) Because it preyed on colonists' sheep and was hunted.
(d) Because it lost its habitat to colonists.

5. How many species of the animal Philip Darlington studied did an island of four square miles possess?
(a) 5.
(b) 217.
(c) 2.
(d) 88.

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

7. What was Tasmania's environmental history, according to Quammen?
(a) It experienced a catastrophic eruption that killed off everything on the island, before life returned slowly.
(b) It was separated from Australia by water.
(c) It was formed by a volcano in the sea.
(d) It was isolated by a growing mountain range in India.

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

9. Which scientist compared animals on islands with their counterparts on larger landmasses?
(a) Quammen.
(b) Foster.
(c) Darwin.
(d) Wallace.

10. What does Quammen say Wallace developed in South America?
(a) A deep devotion to the science of zoology.
(b) A clear vision of the profits to be made in providing scientists with specimens.
(c) A terrifying vision of the destruction of ecosystems.
(d) A sharp eye for different traits in insects.

11. 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 it has predicted recent phenomena.
(d) Because island ecosystems are a good metaphor for ecosystems as a whole.

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

13. What kinds of animals did Philip Darlington look at?
(a) Birds.
(b) Mammals.
(c) Reptiles.
(d) Insects.

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

15. How would you describe Quammen's narrative of the dodo's decline and extinction?
(a) Detailed hypothesis.
(b) Ungrounded fiction.
(c) Detailed narrative.
(d) Speculation.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Michael Soule study?

2. What did Philip Darlington propose?

3. Who does Quammen say typically collected insects?

4. What is a thylacine?

5. What is Quammen really describing as he imagines the hacked up rug?

(see the answer keys)

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