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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What could Whittington not classify Marella with?
(a) Any known group of arthropods.
(b) Any known group of vertebrates.
(c) Any species or phyla.
(d) Any taxonomic genus.

2. What did Whittington attempt to do to many of the new species found in the Burgess Shale?
(a) Cyrogenically preserve them.
(b) Dissect them for a museum show.
(c) Reproduce them.
(d) Classify them into an already existing taxonomy.

3. How does Walcott group the Burgess arthropods among the arthropod phylum?
(a) Narrowly.
(b) Widely.
(c) Hardly.
(d) Minutely.

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

5. In what fashion was the Burgess Shale actually discovered?
(a) A respectable fashion.
(b) A sympathetic fashion.
(c) A reasonable fashion.
(d) A more mundane fashion.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did Marrella and Yohoia still appear to be?

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

3. What association does Gould make with progress and evolution?

4. How does Leif Størmer spread the Burgess arthropods among the groups in the arthropod phylum?

5. How many specimens of Opabinia are in the Burgess Shale?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why did Whittington approach Yohoia less conservatively?

2. What did Leif Størmer's "Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology" describe?

3. Why do paleontologists find Opabinia unbelievable and fascinating?

4. What is the definition of decimation in the relation to the evolution of life?

5. How is the Marrella splendens described in relation to the other Burgess Shale fossils?

6. Why did Gould write this book as an homage to the Burgess Shale?

7. What did Stephen Jay Gould desire to use the Burgess Shale for?

8. Why is the Burgess Shale acknowledged as the most significant collection of fossils yet discovered?

9. What evidence favors Opabinia's uniqueness?

10. What did Whittington find Opabinia to actually be?

(see the answer keys)

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