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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 12, Alone in a Crowded Universe.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Why does the author suggest this about an optimal organism?
(a) Humans can survive without various body parts, so more energy can go into everyday living.
(b) Humans are likely to survive accidents so more energy should be put into child-rearing.
(c) Humans are simply not likely to experience survival after having a limb severed and thus the expense of maintaining limb-regeneration capability would rob energy and resources from other, more significant, capabilities that are more likely to be needed.
(d) Humans are equally balanced to survive most incidences.

2. How selective are humans across an array of traits?
(a) Minimally.
(b) Not at all.
(c) Highly.
(d) Slightly.

3. What does Chapter 5 begin by examining?
(a) Some primate methods of mate selection.
(b) Some animal methods of mate selection.
(c) Monogamous relationships.
(d) Some human methods of mate selection.

4. What happens to all animals?
(a) They age and eventually die.
(b) They survive.
(c) They mate.
(d) They care for one another.

5. What does the author think of the second criterion?
(a) It is unanswerable and therefore not applicable to the debate.
(b) It is the most significant of the criteria.
(c) It is uniquely human.
(d) It has nothing to do with humans making art.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the author conclude about art?

2. What physical traits tend to be significant for an individual's attraction to someone else?

3. In most primates, sexually receptive females exhibit what?

4. To what is the pair bonding found among humans probably due?

5. From what does the author derive clues regarding a species' long-term survival probability?

(see the answer key)

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