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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What did Frank Preston study?
(a) Species distribution.
(b) Species divergence.
(c) Predator-prey relations.
(d) Adaptive radiation.

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

3. How does Quammen describe the efforts of other scientists?
(a) Partial.
(b) Holistic.
(c) Pedantic.
(d) Insufficient.

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

5. What traits did sailors notice in animals on remote islands?
(a) They were unafraid of humans, and thus easy prey.
(b) They adapted more quickly to environmental changes than animals on larger land masses.
(c) They were smaller and harder to observe than their counterparts on land.
(d) They were more varied than species on land.

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

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

8. What did Philip Darlington propose?
(a) A set of formula that measure biodiversity.
(b) A correction that makes this rule broadly applicable.
(c) A mathematical ratio between island area and number of species.
(d) A set of exceptions to this rule.

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

10. What does Quammen say about each of the pieces?
(a) They are unintelligible without the whole design.
(b) They are complex and well made.
(c) They are each complete in themselves.
(d) They are nothing without the whole.

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

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

13. What is the Guam rail?
(a) A marsupial.
(b) A rabbit.
(c) A bird.
(d) A dog.

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

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What belief of Darwin's has modern science disproved?

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

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

4. How would you describe Quammen's style?

5. What was the special creation theory?

(see the answer keys)

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