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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who proposes to use the Burgess Shale to illustrate the nature of history?
(a) Mary J. Gold.
(b) Steven Kay Gold.
(c) Stephen Jay Gould.
(d) Marie Janine Gold.

2. What does Gould's new interpretation emphasize about human evolution?
(a) It has five orders.
(b) It has two orders.
(c) It has a single order.
(d) It has no single order.

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

4. Which creatures are representative of these four classes that survived the first great extinction?
(a) Dragonfly, crabs, and trilobites.
(b) Eurypterid, mollusk, sea cucumbers.
(c) Snails, crabs and dragonflies.
(d) Dragonfly, a fossil eurypterid, a crab and a trilobite

5. What type of evidence concerning Opabinia is considered to be decisive?
(a) Its structure.
(b) Its guts.
(c) Its classification.
(d) Its distinctiveness.

6. What does Gould strain to emphasize for his audience?
(a) The separation of single cell life was mitigated progress.
(b) The evolution of multi-cellular life was not unmitigated progress
(c) The evolution of marine life was unmitigated progress.
(d) The dissipation of marine life was progress.

7. In Gould's perspective, what historical understanding does the Burgess shale offer humanity?
(a) The idea of "plague."
(b) The idea of "necrogenesis."
(c) The idea of "symbiosis."
(d) The idea of "contingency."

8. Where was Opabinia quoted to belong?
(a) In the third genus.
(b) With the arthropods.
(c) Nowhere among the known animals.
(d) Among the crustaceans.

9. Which genus was Whittington focused on classifying in Chapter Three?
(a) Minillera.
(b) Hartoll.
(c) Marrella.
(d) Splendens.

10. When did Whittington begin studying Opabinia?
(a) 1890.
(b) 1975.
(c) 1980.
(d) 1978.

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

12. How many levels are there in the taxonomy of life?
(a) Few.
(b) Several.
(c) Hundreds.
(d) None.

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

14. Of Whittington's team, who was more methodologically conservative?
(a) Derek Briggs.
(b) Conway Morris.
(c) Simeon Martin.
(d) Whittington.

15. What does the Precambrian Era contain?
(a) Geological, non-biological time and the advent of single-celled life.
(b) Spatial, non-biological time and the decimation of single-celled life.
(c) Rational, linear logic and the advent of single-celled life.
(d) Physical, non-linear time and the advent of multi-cellular life.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did the "death of the dinosaurs" boundary make possible?

2. What does Gould focus on to bring the Burgess Shale into clear view?

3. When was the boundary between the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras?

4. When did Whittington publish his first monograph?

5. What was Yohoia specialized for?

(see the answer keys)

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