View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does the second stage of contingency describe?
(a) The progression of prokaryotes.
(b) The developmental path of eukaryotic organisms.
(c) How mammals survived.
(d) The origins of life.

2. How does Gould say diversity could possibly have expanded?
(a) Evenly or even logarithmically.
(b) Exponentially less.
(c) Geometrically.
(d) Narrowly.

3. What example helped round out the Burgess revision?
(a) Marella.
(b) Wiwaxia.
(c) Aysehaia.
(d) Naraoia.

4. What does Act 4 do?
(a) Speed things up.
(b) Skip to the fifth act.
(c) Slow things down.
(d) Keep things conservative.

5. What new view did Whittington now understand?
(a) No Burgess fossils fit within any known taxonomy.
(b) Many Burgess fossils cannot be placed in any known taxonomy.
(c) Many Burgess fossils fit within one known taxonomy.
(d) Few Burgess fossils cannot be placed in any known taxonomy.

Short Answer Questions

1. What years did Whittington work on Naraoia and Aysheaia?

2. How many general Burgess revisions did we acquire?

3. What are Derek Briggs and Simon Conway Morris described as?

4. What does Chapter 4 argue that the story of history is about?

5. How did Naraoia help the Burgess Drama?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is uniquely special about the discovery of Sanctacaris?

2. Describe Wiwaxia.

3. What must the next generation do with the Burgess Shale?

4. How is Whittington inclined to see Opabinia during his initial observations?

5. What did Whittington originally think Naraoia was?

6. How does the book describe Derek Briggs and Simon Conway Morris as students of Oxford?

7. How can Odaraia be described?

8. What did Collins do when faced with the prevention of Des Collins excavation of Walcott's quarry?

9. Why did classifying Naraoia pose a problem for Whittington?

10. Why did the Burgess Shale drama become a denouement by 1978?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 589 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample