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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 comprises the first 4 billion years of Earth's history?
(a) The Prestige Era.
(b) The Precambrian Era.
(c) The Cambrian Era.
(d) The Mesozoic Era.

2. What does the evolution of life contain, according to Gould's explanations and illustrations?
(a) "Reconstruction and growth."
(b) "Decimation and diversification."
(c) "Annihilation and acceptance."
(d) "Agreement and speculation."

3. What does the Burgess Shale represent that occurred 570 million years ago?
(a) The "Anthropological Explosion."
(b) The "Cambrian Explosion."
(c) The "Precambrian Explosion."
(d) The "Prezoaic Explosion."

4. What does Gould represent the original interpretation as?
(a) "The step and the bowl."
(b) "The chair and the ladder."
(c) "The cone and the rod."
(d) "The ladder and the cone."

5. How does Gould begin Chapter 2: "A Background for the Burgess Shale"?
(a) Explaining which animals are in the Burgess Shale.
(b) Explaining what the Burgess Shale represents.
(c) Explaining the last chapter's conclusion.
(d) Explaining how scientists divide up historical epochs.

Short Answer Questions

1. What kinds of versions does the story of the Burgess Shale's discovery have?

2. What did Walcott do for science by collecting and cataloging tens of thousands of new species?

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

4. What kind of lessons does Stephen Jay Gould draw from how the Burgess Shale was first interpreted?

5. What kind of development were the Burgess animals first interpreted to have?

(see the answer key)

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