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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 3, Reconstruction of the Burgess Shale: Toward a New View of Life.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the Burgess Shale composed of?
(a) Viruses.
(b) Invertebrates.
(c) Amoebas.
(d) Vertebrates.

2. According to Gould, what kind of insight does the Burgess Shale offer into the nature of life and the evolution of life forms?
(a) Weird insight.
(b) Normal insight.
(c) Unique insight.
(d) Distasteful insight.

3. What kinds of versions does the story of the Burgess Shale's discovery have?
(a) Two of more or less the same version.
(b) An old, less accurate version and a newer, more accurate version.
(c) A old, more accurate version and a newer, less accurate version.
(d) A newer, less accurate version and an older, more accurate version.

4. Who newly interpreted the Burgess animals in 1971?
(a) Dr. John Whit and his colleagues.
(b) Professor Harry Whittington of Cambridge and his colleagues.
(c) Professor Matt Stephens and his wife.
(d) Dr. Whittington of Yale and her husband.

5. What is one of the first tasks of the paleontologist after producing a clear specimen?
(a) Classify the specimen in taxonomy.
(b) Write a monograph on observation alone.
(c) Categorize each file according to specimen.
(d) Naturalize the environment and take samples.

Short Answer Questions

1. What kind of drama does Gould wish to recount that led to rejecting Walcott's interpretation?

2. Who proposes to use the Burgess Shale to illustrate the nature of history?

3. Which creatures are representative of these four classes that survived the first great extinction?

4. When did Whittington publish his first monograph?

5. How much of all marine life died during the greatest extinction in history?

(see the answer key)

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