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

2. Who was America's "greatest paleontologist and scientific administrator"?
(a) Charles Walmont.
(b) Charles Doolittle Walcott.
(c) Dr. Doolittle.
(d) Charlie VanGuarden.

3. What did the new methods Whittington and his team adopted help them do?
(a) Study the fossils.
(b) Transport the fossils.
(c) Recast the fossils.
(d) Organize the fossils.

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

5. What kind of development were the Burgess animals first interpreted to have?
(a) Gradual, progressive development.
(b) Regressing development.
(c) Quick, rash development.
(d) Unchanging development.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did Whittington later note that he labored under?

2. What does Gould determine about the difference between eukaryotic fauna and the Burgess fauna?

3. In what year did Leif Størmer describe the Burgess Shale arthropods in a treatise?

4. What did Whittington conclude about Yohoia in 1975?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. Why are the Burgess Shale's arthropod designs odd?

2. Why do paleontologists find Opabinia unbelievable and fascinating?

3. What is Chapter 3: Reconstruction of the Burgess Shale: Toward a New View of Life about?

4. Name four levels of the taxonomy of life.

5. How did Walcott's taxonomy have to be significantly updated?

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

7. Why did Whittington approach Yohoia less conservatively?

8. What did Leif Størmer decide to do in contrast to Walcott?

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

10. What was the difference between Simon Conway Morris and Whittington in the way that they worked?

(see the answer keys)

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