In many areas of human endeavor, consistency is an important quality. Why was inconsistency a critical quality in the initiation of life as we know it?

The time-frames in the geological timescale generally denote ____.

a. 10,000-year increments

b. 10-million-year increments

c. the reappearance of certain life-forms

d. transitions in life-forms

e. the appearance of larger life-forms

The first life on Earth may have been:

a. eukaryotic cells

b. RNA molecules

c. bacteria

d. formed on land

e. algae

Which of the following characteristics of early plants were adaptations to life on land? (Select all that apply.)

a. multicellularity

b. outer cuticle

c. photosynthesis

d. lack of vertical growth

e. internal embryonic development

What is the order of evolution among the following organisms, earliest first?

a. amphibians

b. lobe-finned fish

c. mammals

d. reptiles

e. primates

Photosynthesis was an important innovation in the history of life because (select all that apply):

a. it allowed RNA to replicate itself.

b. it put large quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

c. it allowed living things to capture energy from the sun.

d. it brought about the production of a large amount of food

e. it helped the Earth to warm.

Mitochondria and chloroplasts (select all that apply):

a. are organelles within cells.

b. have a bacterial structure.

c. were early protists.

d. resulted from symbiosis.

e. appeared late in evolutionary history.

What is the order of the evolution among the following organisms, earliest first:

a. gymnosperms

b. green algae

c. seedless vascular plants

d. bryophtes

e. angiosperms

Cladistics determines relatedness among organisms by counting shared, derived characters: characters that are ________ to taxa descended from a ________.

One school of thought holds that Earth’s organisms ought to be categorized in strict accordance with ______, while another holds that other factors, such as shared physical qualities, ought to be considered as well.

Adaptive radiation is the rapid emergence of many species from a single species that has been introduced to ________.