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

2. 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 dissipation of marine life was progress.
(d) The evolution of marine life was unmitigated progress.

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

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

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What are Marrella and Yohoia?

2. What does the evolution of life contain, according to Gould's explanations and illustrations?

3. Who was America's "greatest paleontologist and scientific administrator"?

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

5. How did Whittington approach Yohoia?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

4. Why did Whittington approach Yohoia less conservatively?

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

6. Why could the acceptance of the new interpretation create within humans a psychological shock?

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

8. How is the "Cambrian explosion" defined?

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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