1) The theory of natural selection states that:

A) individuals that live the longest are best adapted and selected for survival in the next generation.

B) individuals that mutate in response to their environment will survive at the expense of those individuals who are genetically stable.

C) only the largest and strongest individuals survive.

D) the best-adapted individuals survive and reproduce, contributing the most genes to the next generation.

2) What determines which traits will be passed on to the next generation in the greatest frequency?

A) acquired characteristics

B) mutations

C) common descent with modification

D) natural selection

3) A population of deer was threatened with overpopulation until cheetahs were imported. After a couple of years, there were fewer deer, but the average running speed of the deer had increased. This is an example of:

A) natural selection.

B) mutation.

C) inheritance of acquired characteristics.

D) genetic drift.

4) Evolution can be used to explain all of the following except:

A) the appearance of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria.

B) the separate creation of each species.

C) common characteristics of related species.

D) constant change in populations of organisms.

5) Which of the following is the most important force in shaping evolution?

A) biological research

B) random events

C) natural selection

D) the fixity of species

6) What core theme unites all of biology?

A) natural selection

B) ecology

C) evolution

D) genetics

7) What mechanism did Charles Darwin discover as the driving force behind evolution?

A) the inheritance of acquired characteristics

B) common descent with modification

C) natural selection

D) artificial selection

8) In Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology, what idea had a significant impact on Charles Darwin’s thinking?

A) Organisms change form over generations.

B) A series of catastrophes wiped out life in given areas.

C) Populations produce more individuals than can survive.

D) Geological forces that are still operating act to change the Earth’s surface.

9) Who is credited with first providing conclusive evidence of species extinction?

A) Charles Lyell

B) Georges Cuvier

C) Alfred Russel Wallace

10) Who believed that species evolve by passing acquired characteristics to offspring?

A) Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck

B) Charles Lyell

C) Alfred Russel Wallace