View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

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

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

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

4. What were theories of species evolution based on in Wallace's time?
(a) Science.
(b) Religion.
(c) Superstition.
(d) Guesses.

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

Short Answer Questions

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

2. Where does Quammen say isolates can occur?

3. Where did the dodo live?

4. Why was the thylacine killed off?

5. What is the difference between an isolate and a sample?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Quammen use the island of Tasmania as an example of?

2. What is the governing metaphor in the opening chapter?

3. What is the first explanation Quammen offers for the relationship between island size and species count?

4. How did David Wallace make his start as a biologist, in Quammen's narrative?

5. What practical assertion does Quammen say Frank Preston made based on his findings?

6. What was the understanding about the variety of life forms before the theory of evolution came along?

7. Describe how Quammen's narrative progresses from one idea to the next.

8. What example does Quammen draw from the island of Guam?

9. Who is Philip Darlington, and what was his contribution to the discussion of island size and species count?

10. What is trophic cascade?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 800 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample