Biology Test Preparation Practice

    Ls4.A: Evidence Of Common Ancestry And Diversity

    NGSS: HS-LS4-1

    Base your answers to questions 1 on the information below and on your knowledge of biology.

    Fossil Footprints

    Scientists examined a trail of fossil footprints left by early humans in soft, volcanic ash in Eastern Africa. A drawing of the trail of footprints is shown below. Each footprint is represented as a series of lines indicating the depth that different parts of the foot sank into the volcanic ash.

    labs, lab, appendix A, laboratory check list fig: lenv82019-examw_g10.png

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    Base your answers to questions 7 on the information and diagram below and on your knowledge of biology. The diagram represents the evolutionary relationships among many organisms.

    evolution, extinction fig: lenv62018-examw_g20.png

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    Base your answers to questions 10 on the information and photograph below and on your knowledge of biology.

    A Close Relative of the Elephant

    A hyrax is an animal that has been called a rock rabbit and looks like a guinea pig. Fossil records show that hyraxes first appeared on Earth approximately 37 million years ago. As they evolved, some became mouse-sized, while some were the size of a horse. Some eventually adapted to marine life and are related to manatees, and some became grazers and are related to elephants.

    labs, lab, relationships and biodiversity fig: lenv12020-examw_g29.png

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    Base your answers to questions 11 on the passage below and on your knowledge of biology.

    Most animal fossils include hard body parts such as teeth and bones. Until recently, scientists had little hope that soft tissue could be preserved in the bones. A team of scientists has removed soft tissue containing a collagen protein from the leg bone of a 68-million-year-old fossil from a dinosaur, Tyrannosaurus rex. The technique of mass spectrometry was used to identify the sequences of certain molecules in several small fragments of the dinosaur collagen protein.

    The molecular sequences were compared to those of modern animals. The scientist found that the collagen protein of the Tyrannosaurus rex more closely resembled the collagen protein found in modern chickens than that in some other modern animals.

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    Base your answer to question 12-16 on the information below and on your knowledge of biology.

    New varieties of organisms have resulted from human activities. These organisms have often led to problems in modern society. Two of these new varieties are listed below.

    Antibiotic-resistant bacteria Pesticide-resistant insects

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    Base your answers to questions 18 on the passage below and on your knowledge of biology.

    Ocean-dwelling (marine) iguanas and land iguanas inhabit the Galapagos Islands. Some scientists believe that both types of iguanas diverged from a common ancestor. Marine iguanas eat algae. Land iguanas feed on cacti. Algae are more abundant in the ocean than cacti are on the islands. Both species lay their eggs in the sand.

    Rats, cats, and goats have been introduced to the islands by humans. Rats feed on iguana eggs, cats eat baby iguanas, and goats eat cacti.

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    Base your answers to questions 19 on the information and chart below and on your knowledge of biology.

    Scientists studied the distribution of a species of pocket mouse that lived in the sandy desert regions of the southwestern United States. They are eaten by a variety of predators. Pocket mice are active at night, and feed on seeds and grasses. A single female mouse can reproduce several times each year, producing a litter of 3 to 13 offspring each time. Each new litter is considered a generation.

    A volcanic eruption that resulted in lava flows changed the color of the area that the mice inhabit from light brown to black. Data from the scientist’s research of the population are shown in the chart below.

    evolution, altered genes and new inheritable characteristics, evolution, altered genes and new inheritable characteristics fig: lenv62016-examw_g24.png

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