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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 is so strange about Opabinia that paleontologists found it unbelievable?
(a) The proboscis.
(b) The structure.
(c) The diagnosis.
(d) The function.

2. How did Whittington approach Yohoia?
(a) Less conservatively.
(b) Moderately liberally.
(c) More conservatively.
(d) Very liberally.

3. When does the old story have Walcott miraculously stumble upon the Burgess Shale?
(a) After his son stumbled upon it.
(b) After his pistol whipped the dust.
(c) After his wife's horse tripped and fell onto it.
(d) Before his son fell onto the Shale.

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

5. What types did Whittingdon use to classify the new species?
(a) Cilial types.
(b) Arthropod types.
(c) Mollusk types.
(d) Regenerative types.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Gould represent the original interpretation as?

2. What was Opabinia's frontal nozzle not?

3. When did Whittington publish his first monograph?

4. How many general stages of fauna are between the two faunas both eukaryotic and of the Burgess Shale?

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

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What is the purpose of Chapter 2: A Background for the Burgess Shale?

3. What evidence favors Opabinia's uniqueness?

4. What dominant paradigm about the Burgess fossils was Whittington pressured to conform to?

5. What did people think Opabinia was and what did Whittington choose to believe about this idea?

6. What is the boundary between the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras famous?

7. What did using these new methods allow Whittington's team to do?

8. What are Marrella and Yohoia in terms of evolution?

9. How is the "Cambrian explosion" defined?

10. What sorts of new procedures did Whittington's team use?

(see the answer keys)

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