QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS WITH
SOLUTIONS 2024
The ideas of Lamarck - ANSWER In the 19th Century Lamark proposed a mechanism referred to as the
inheritance of acquired characteristics, which states that changes that affect an organism during its
lifetime would be passed to its offspring (ie. stress of environment or bvhr
Evolution by Natural selection (understanding the mechanism) - ANSWER requires that organisms
possess heritable differences and that certain organisms reproduce more than others.
Applying the idea of natural selection to understand how populations of bacteria become immune to
antibiotics - ANSWER The antibiotic action is an environmental pressure; those bacteria which have a
mutation allowing them to survive will live on to reproduce. They will then pass this trait to their
offspring, which will be a fully resistant generation.
The Scientific method (definit'n) - ANSWER Consists of steps that combine reasoning and observations.
SM Controls - ANSWER A group in a study that recieved no treatment of a placebo to compare the
outcome of control to the hypothesis.
SM dependent vs independent variables - ANSWER An independent variable is the variable that is
changed or controlled in a scientific experiment to test the effects on the dependent variable. A
dependent variable is the variable being tested and measured in a scientific experiment
SM replicates - ANSWER A count the of individual samples or observations in any statistical setting, such
as a scientific experiment or a public opinion survey. Sample size is a critical determination for a project.
Too small a sample yields unreliable results, while an overly large sample demands a good deal of time
and resources.on
Heritability - ANSWER A statistic used in the fields of breeding and genetics that estimates the degree of
variation in a phenotypic trait in a population that is due to genetic variation between individuals in that
population.