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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How many new arthropod designs does The Burgess Shale contain?
(a) Twenty.
(b) Twelve.
(c) Fifty.
(d) Sixty.

2. Why did Whittington dissect Opabinia?
(a) To find its liver.
(b) To uncover its bodily appendages.
(c) To look at its heart.
(d) To uncover its organs.

3. What are Marrella and Yohoia?
(a) Animals from another universe.
(b) Evolutionary dead-ends.
(c) Evolutionary cousins.
(d) Known animals from Earth.

4. What did the "death of the dinosaurs" boundary make possible?
(a) The development of smaller mammals.
(b) The development of large mammals like humans.
(c) The development of rodents.
(d) The development of large tortoises and sharks.

5. What did Walcott think Opabinia was just another one of?
(a) Mollusk.
(b) Crustacean.
(c) Plant.
(d) Anemone.

6. What bizarre features does Opabinia possess?
(a) Eight noses and four eyes.
(b) Frontal nozzle and five eyes.
(c) Twenty limbs.
(d) No nose and three eyes.

7. What was Opabinia's frontal nozzle not?
(a) A second mouth.
(b) Part of its head.
(c) A proboscis.
(d) A carapace.

8. What does Gould focus on to bring the Burgess Shale into clear view?
(a) Des Collin's insight.
(b) Whittington's insight.
(c) Opabinia's dissection.
(d) Technical perfection

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

10. 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 newer, less accurate version and an older, more accurate version.
(d) A old, more accurate version and a newer, less accurate version.

11. What did Whittington conclude about Yohoia in 1975?
(a) Yohoia is in multiple systems.
(b) Yohoia is a known arthropod.
(c) Yohoia does not fit anywhere.
(d) Yohoia is an unknown trilobite.

12. After publishing his first monograph, which two graduate students did Whittington employ?
(a) Barry Moser and Simeon Martin.
(b) Briggs Morris and Simon Conway.
(c) Simon Conway Morris and Derek Briggs.
(d) Jeremy Morris and Derek Briggs.

13. What was Whittington armed with that helped him review the claim that Opabinia was an arthropod?
(a) New fossils.
(b) Old instructional manuals.
(c) New techniques.
(d) New tossils.

14. When was the famed "death of the dinosaurs?"
(a) 20 million years ago.
(b) 65 million years ago.
(c) 10 million years ago.
(d) 100 thousand million years ago.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What kind of appendages did Yohoia have?

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

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

4. What was Whittington's first monograph about?

5. What pushed Whittington beyond the idea he struggled under?

(see the answer keys)

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