APES Exam Study guide
QUESTIONS & DETAILED
CORRECT ANSWERS
Amount of biologically productive land and water needed to supply a population with the
renewable resources it uses and to absorb or dispose of the wastes from such resource use. It is
a measure of the average environmental impact of populations in different countries and areas -
correct answer ✔✔Ecological Footprint
Threshold level at which an environmental problem causes a fundamental and irreversible shift
in the behavior of a system. - correct answer ✔✔Ecological Tipping Point
Biological science that studies the relationships between living organisms and their
environment; study of the structure and functions of nature. - correct answer ✔✔Ecology
Natural resources and natural services that keep us and other species alive and support our
economies. - correct answer ✔✔Natural Capital
Annual gross domestic product (GDP) of a country divided by its total population at midyear. It
gives the average slice of the economic (or environmental) pie per person. - correct answer
✔✔Per Capita
Natural services or natural capital that support life on the earth and are essential to the quality
of human life and the functioning of the world's economies. - correct answer ✔✔Ecosystem
Services
,has a never-ending supply. Some examples of perpetual resources include solar energy, tidal
energy, and wind energy - correct answer ✔✔Perpetual Resource
Set of assumptions and beliefs about how people think the world works, what they think their
role in the world should be, and what they believe is right and wrong environmental behavior
(environmental ethics). - correct answer ✔✔Environmental Wisdom Worldview
Worldview holding that humans are separate from nature, that nature exists mainly to meet our
needs and increasing wants, and that we can use our ingenuity and technology to manage the
earth's life-support systems, mostly for our benefit. It assumes that economic growth is
unlimited. - correct answer ✔✔Planetary Management Worldview
Worldview holding that we can manage the earth for our benefit but that we have an ethical
responsibility to be caring and responsible managers, or stewards, of the earth. It calls for
encouraging environmentally beneficial forms of economic growth and discouraging
environmentally harmful forms. - correct answer ✔✔Stewardship Worldview
Ability of earth's various systems, including human cultural systems and economies, to survive
and adapt to changing environmental conditions indefinitely. - correct answer ✔✔Sustainability
To live more sustainably we need to rely on solar energy, preserve biodiversity, and recycle the
chemicals that we use. These three principles of sustainability are scientific lessons from nature
based on observing how life on the earth has survived and thrived for 3.5 billion years - correct
answer ✔✔scientific principles of sustainability
Whenever energy is converted from one form to another in a physical or chemical change, no
energy is created or destroyed, but energy can be changed from one form to another; you
cannot get more energy out of something than you put in; in terms of energy quantity, you
cannot get something for nothing. This law does not apply to nuclear changes, in which large
amounts of energy can be produced from small amounts of matter. - correct answer ✔✔First
Law of Thermodynamics
, Whenever energy is converted from one form to another in a physical or chemical change, no
energy is created or destroyed, but energy can be changed from one form to another; you
cannot get more energy out of something than you put in; in terms of energy quantity, you
cannot get something for nothing. This law does not apply to nuclear changes, in which large
amounts of energy can be produced from small amounts of matter. It asserts that a natural
process runs only in one sense, and is not reversible. - correct answer ✔✔Second Law of
Thermodynamics
Feedback loop that causes a system to change in the opposite direction from which is it moving.
- correct answer ✔✔Negative Feedback Loop
Feedback loop that causes a system to change further in the same direction - correct answer
✔✔Positive Feedback Loop
In any physical or chemical change, matter is neither created nor destroyed but merely changed
from one form to another; in physical and chemical changes, existing atoms are rearranged into
different spatial patterns (physical changes) or different combinations (chemical changes). -
correct answer ✔✔Law of Conservation of Matter
Forms of kinetic energy traveling as electromagnetic waves. Examples include radio waves, TV
waves, microwaves, infrared radiation, visible light, ultraviolet radiation, X-rays, and gamma
rays. - correct answer ✔✔Electromagnetic Radiation
Numeric value that indicates the relative acidity or alkalinity of a substance on a scale of 0 to 14,
with the neutral point at 7. Acid solutions have pH values lower than 7; basic or alkaline
solutions have pH values greater than 7. - correct answer ✔✔Ph
energy that is concentrated and has great ability to perform useful work; e.g. heat and energy in
electricity, coal, oil, gasoline, sunlight, nuclei of uranium-235 - correct answer ✔✔High-Quality
energy
QUESTIONS & DETAILED
CORRECT ANSWERS
Amount of biologically productive land and water needed to supply a population with the
renewable resources it uses and to absorb or dispose of the wastes from such resource use. It is
a measure of the average environmental impact of populations in different countries and areas -
correct answer ✔✔Ecological Footprint
Threshold level at which an environmental problem causes a fundamental and irreversible shift
in the behavior of a system. - correct answer ✔✔Ecological Tipping Point
Biological science that studies the relationships between living organisms and their
environment; study of the structure and functions of nature. - correct answer ✔✔Ecology
Natural resources and natural services that keep us and other species alive and support our
economies. - correct answer ✔✔Natural Capital
Annual gross domestic product (GDP) of a country divided by its total population at midyear. It
gives the average slice of the economic (or environmental) pie per person. - correct answer
✔✔Per Capita
Natural services or natural capital that support life on the earth and are essential to the quality
of human life and the functioning of the world's economies. - correct answer ✔✔Ecosystem
Services
,has a never-ending supply. Some examples of perpetual resources include solar energy, tidal
energy, and wind energy - correct answer ✔✔Perpetual Resource
Set of assumptions and beliefs about how people think the world works, what they think their
role in the world should be, and what they believe is right and wrong environmental behavior
(environmental ethics). - correct answer ✔✔Environmental Wisdom Worldview
Worldview holding that humans are separate from nature, that nature exists mainly to meet our
needs and increasing wants, and that we can use our ingenuity and technology to manage the
earth's life-support systems, mostly for our benefit. It assumes that economic growth is
unlimited. - correct answer ✔✔Planetary Management Worldview
Worldview holding that we can manage the earth for our benefit but that we have an ethical
responsibility to be caring and responsible managers, or stewards, of the earth. It calls for
encouraging environmentally beneficial forms of economic growth and discouraging
environmentally harmful forms. - correct answer ✔✔Stewardship Worldview
Ability of earth's various systems, including human cultural systems and economies, to survive
and adapt to changing environmental conditions indefinitely. - correct answer ✔✔Sustainability
To live more sustainably we need to rely on solar energy, preserve biodiversity, and recycle the
chemicals that we use. These three principles of sustainability are scientific lessons from nature
based on observing how life on the earth has survived and thrived for 3.5 billion years - correct
answer ✔✔scientific principles of sustainability
Whenever energy is converted from one form to another in a physical or chemical change, no
energy is created or destroyed, but energy can be changed from one form to another; you
cannot get more energy out of something than you put in; in terms of energy quantity, you
cannot get something for nothing. This law does not apply to nuclear changes, in which large
amounts of energy can be produced from small amounts of matter. - correct answer ✔✔First
Law of Thermodynamics
, Whenever energy is converted from one form to another in a physical or chemical change, no
energy is created or destroyed, but energy can be changed from one form to another; you
cannot get more energy out of something than you put in; in terms of energy quantity, you
cannot get something for nothing. This law does not apply to nuclear changes, in which large
amounts of energy can be produced from small amounts of matter. It asserts that a natural
process runs only in one sense, and is not reversible. - correct answer ✔✔Second Law of
Thermodynamics
Feedback loop that causes a system to change in the opposite direction from which is it moving.
- correct answer ✔✔Negative Feedback Loop
Feedback loop that causes a system to change further in the same direction - correct answer
✔✔Positive Feedback Loop
In any physical or chemical change, matter is neither created nor destroyed but merely changed
from one form to another; in physical and chemical changes, existing atoms are rearranged into
different spatial patterns (physical changes) or different combinations (chemical changes). -
correct answer ✔✔Law of Conservation of Matter
Forms of kinetic energy traveling as electromagnetic waves. Examples include radio waves, TV
waves, microwaves, infrared radiation, visible light, ultraviolet radiation, X-rays, and gamma
rays. - correct answer ✔✔Electromagnetic Radiation
Numeric value that indicates the relative acidity or alkalinity of a substance on a scale of 0 to 14,
with the neutral point at 7. Acid solutions have pH values lower than 7; basic or alkaline
solutions have pH values greater than 7. - correct answer ✔✔Ph
energy that is concentrated and has great ability to perform useful work; e.g. heat and energy in
electricity, coal, oil, gasoline, sunlight, nuclei of uranium-235 - correct answer ✔✔High-Quality
energy
