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Question 01

The Genus Homo is at least how old?

a) 200,000 years

b) 15 million years

c) 1 million years

d) 4 million years

Question 02

For most of its history, our species existed in:

a) small agricultural settlements

b) hunger-gatherer groups.

c) groups of nomadic herders.

d) small city-states.

Question 03

If an allele is more common in a modern human population than one would expect based on its current fitness, what explanation do medical geneticists often suggest and investigate?

a) That it arises from unusually frequent mutations.

b) That it is maintained at high frequency by gene flow from some population where it has higher fitness.

c) That it provided resistance to infectious diseases that were common until quite recently.

d) That it is maintained by assortative mating.

Question 04

The O blood group (in the ABO system) is associated with susceptibility to:

a) peptic ulcers.

b) cholera.

c) tuberculosis.

d) plague.

Question 05

By what method does the sickle-cell allele reduce susceptibility to malaria?

a) Improving the efficiency of the immune reaction.

b) Helping to produce a substance that poisons the pathogen.

c) Reducing the concentration of critical nutrients that the pathogen needs to reproduce.

d) Forcing the pathogen to shift its habitat use in the human body.

Question 06

Genes now associated with allergies and asthma appear to have previously helped protect us from:

a) smallpox.

b) parasitic worms.

c) flu.

d) typhus.

Question 07

Which of the following statements is correct?

a) Our bodies and minds were largely shaped in hunter-gatherer bands in the Paleolithic.

b) Our bodies and minds were shaped in processes millions of years old and extending into the present.

c) Our bodies and minds predominantly reflect adaptations to life in agricultural settlements.

d) Our bodies may bear traces of our evolutionary history but our psychology does not, for we are rational beings.

Question 08

The probability that cancer will arise in a given tissue is related to:

a) the frequency with which cells in that tissue divide.

b) the particular genes that occur in that tissue.

c) the probability that that tissue will be attacked by pathogens.

d) the activation in that tissue of particular developmental control genes normally associated with apoptosis.

Question 09

Which of the following is not an auto-immune disease?

a) Multiple sclerosis

b) Rheumatoid arthritis

c) Schistosomiasis

d) Type I diabetes

Question 10

Which statement about the evolution of virulence is correct?

a) Pathogens should evolve to become benign to their hosts because it does not pay them to kill the flesh they feed on.

b) Pathogens should evolve to become extremely virulent so as to out-compete the other pathogens inhabiting the same host.

c) The level of virulence of a pathogen is unpredictable because all pathogens only inhabit a given host species for a short time.

d) The level of virulence of a pathogen should evolve to an intermediate level set by the transmission opportunities and the frequency of encounters with competitors in the same host.

Question 11

How is meningitis - a disease of the membranes surrounding the brain - like cancer?

a) Both are caused by viruses.

b) Both are invariably fatal.

c) Both are driven by "short-sighted" evolution that destroys the host without having a chance of transmission.

d) There is absolutely no resemblance between the two.

Question 12

Which of the following is good evidence that a gene has been undergoing adaptive evolution recently in response to a co-evolutionary interaction?

a) A high rate of synonymous substitution.

b) A high rate of non-synonymous substitution.

c) A dramatic shift in codon bias.

d) A repetition of homeo-box motifs.

Question 13

The fact that some pathogenic bacteria have higher mutation rates in the parts of their genomes that interact with their hosts shows that:

a) mutations do not occur at random with respect to fitness.

b) the hosts are inducing specific mutation rates in different parts of the bacterial genome.

c) these bacteria are evolving in anticipation of future challenges.

d) if you have to play in a lottery, it pays to have a lot of tickets.

Question 14

Which of the following hypotheses for the evolution of menopause explains it as a byproduct of selection for something else?

a) It evolved to produce post-menopausal grandmothers who could help their daughters care for their grandchildren.

b) It did not evolve because it rarely existed before modern medicine extended the human lifespan.

c) It is a straightforward consequence of selection for oocytic atresia and the well-known decline in selection pressures with age.

d) It results from the accumulation of unrepaired pathogenic damage to the female reproductive tract.

Question 15

Because oocytic atresia and spontaneous abortions destroy a huge number of germ cells and zygotes, we can conclude that:

a) nature is telling us that abortion is wrong.

b) nature is telling us that abortion makes no difference.

c) nature is not telling us anything - we have to decide what is best ourselves using our own moral systems.

d) genetic defects are not a very frequent problem in human evolution.

Question 16

If humans are capable of choosing mates based in part on their potential to produce children with healthy immune systems, then what one thing can we conclude?

a) Pathogens were not an important element of our evolutionary past.

b) Other factors are not important in mate choice.

c) Human populations have typically been large and out-bred for a long time.

d) We are probably not always consciously aware of why we make the choices that we do.

Question 17

The best way to select for antibiotic resistance is to confront the bacterial population with:

a) a cyclically changing array of antibiotics.

b) a single huge dose of one antibiotic.

c) strong doses of several antibiotics.

d) a steady low dose of one antibiotic administered for a long period of time.

Question 18

The field that most directly and impressively demonstrates that humans are material beings subject to the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology is:

a) modern medicine.

b) evolutionary psychology.

c) evolutionary economics.

d) evolutionary anthropology.

Oxford University Press, Online Resource Centre, Chapter 19.

Chapter 19

Instructions