Question: Based on the characteristic population curves that result from plotting population growth of a species, the most effective means of controlling the mosquito population is to

Choices:
- maintain the population at a point corresponding to the midpoint of its logistic curve
- opt for zero population control once the K value of the curve has been reached
- reduce the carrying capacity cif the environment to lower the K value
- increase the mortality rate


Question: A frameshift mutation is created when

Choices:
- telomeric sequences are removed from DNA
- a codon's nucleotide sequence changes so that it calls for production of a different amino acid than the original one
- a base pair is either inserted or deleted in a gene
- a codon's nucleotide sequence is changed so that instead of coding for a given amino acid it acts to terminate translation


Question: To prevent desiccation and injury, the embryos of terrestrial vertebrates are encased within a fluid secreted by the

Choices:
- amnion
- chorion
- allantois
- yolk sac


Question: Which of the following is a second messenger that stimulates release of calcium ions into the cytoplasm?

Choices:
- Prostaglandins
- Inositol triphosphate
- Cyclic AMP
- Calmodulin


Question: Synthesis of an RNA/DNA hybrid from a single-stranded RNA template requires

Choices:
- a DNA or RNA primer and reverse transcriptase
- a DNA or RNA primer and DNA polymerase
- RNase only
- reverse transcriptase only


Question: In order for the Hardy-Weinberg law to operate with respect to a population of organisms, each of the following conditions must be met EXCEPT:

Choices:
- Genes are exchanged with other populations.
- Population size is large.
- Natural selection does not take place.
- Matings are random.


Question: The Barr body found within female mammalian cells' nuclei is an example of

Choices:
- euchromatin
- heterochromatin
- a cistron
- pseudogenes


Question: Which of the following is NOT a source of atmospheric carbon?

Choices:
- Respiration
- Photosynthesis
- Bacterial decomposition
- Combustion of fossil fuels


Question: The concept of punctuated equilibrium refers to

Choices:
- oscillating ecological successional stages
- ecological succession arrested by sudden environmental changes, e.g., fire
- persistent predator-prey relationships in relatively stable environments
- bursts of speciation followed by relatively unchanging lineages


Question: When an influenza virus enters a cell, it immediately starts to do which of the following?

Choices:
- Incorporate viral DNA into the host cell’s chromosome
- Destroy the host cell’s transcriptional machinery
- Replicate its genetic material and synthesize viral proteins
- Use a viral copy of reverse transcriptase to manufacture viral DNA


Question: Cleavage symmetry arising from early cell divisions that occur at an oblique angle to the polar axis is known as

Choices:
- meroblastic cleavage
- radial cleavage
- spiral cleavage
- superficial cleavage


Question: Targeting of a newly synthesized protein is most likely to require two different signal peptides for which of the following destinations?

Choices:
- Plasma membrane
- Lysosome
- Cytosol
- Chloroplast


Question: In Sweden, the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) severely limits populations of its prey, including hares. However, red fox populations are sometimes attacked by a fatal parasite, the mange mite. As mite population sizes increase at a given site, how are hare and fox populations most likely to respond at the same site? (Assume that hares have no major predators at this site other than foxes.)

Choices:
- Both fox and hare populations will decrease.
- Both fox and hare populations will increase.
- Fox populations will decrease and hare populations will increase.
- Fox populations will increase and hare populations will decrease.


Question:
A cell nucleus contains which of the following?
I. DNA
II. Protein
III. RNA

Choices:
- I only
- II only
- III only
- I, II, and III


Question: In one taxonomic classification, Archaea, Eukarya, and Bacteria represent the three major domains of life. Eukarya utilize the general transcription factors TBP (TATA-binding protein) and TFIIB in transcription, whereas Bacteria do not. At least one member of Archaea has a protein similar to TBP and a protein similar to TFIIB. Based on this observation, which of the following scenarios is most likely?

Choices:
- Archaea and Eukarya diverged after their common ancestor diverged from Bacteria.
- Archaea and Bacteria diverged after their common ancestor diverged from Eukarya.
- Bacteria and Eukarya diverged after their common ancestor diverged from Archaea.
- Archaea, Eukarya, and Bacteria diverged simultaneously from a common ancestor.


Question: A rise in intracellular free calcium in the sea urchin oocyte causes the release of proteolytic enzymes which act to prevent polyspermy. The events just described entail the

Choices:
- zona reaction
- acrosomal reaction
- cortical reaction
- fertilization reaction


Question: Which of the following is a benefit that mycorrhizal fungi confer to many plants?

Choices:
- They protect plant roots from desiccation in extremely dry habitats.
- They fix nitrogen, which is particularly important for plants in nitrogen-limited habitats.
- They provide access to phosphorus, an essential element that is limited in many kinds of soils.
- They provide carbon to plants in exchange for fixed nitrogen.


Question: Experiments on song development in birds have shown that when a young male reared in isolation hears only the song of a different bird species, he will develop an adult song repertoire that lacks certain characteristics typical of his own species. This result shows that the song of his species is most likely

Choices:
- entirely learned during development
- entirely instinctive
- both instinctive and learned
- dependent upon hormones for proper development


Question: Which of the following most accurately describes a retrotransposon?

Choices:
- A DNA sequence that can move from one site in the genome to another without replicating
- A DNA sequence that can be deleted from the genome without consequence
- A DNA sequence that replicates via an RNA intermediate
- A DNA sequence that replicates via a protein intermediate


Question: The soils of which of the following biomes has the highest rate of leaching and cycling of nutrients?

Choices:
- Tropical rain forest
- Tundra
- Taiga
- Desert


Question: Which of the following best explains why enzymes are effective in facilitating chemical reactions?

Choices:
- They raise the temperature of the reaction mixture, thereby speeding up the conversion of reactants to products.
- They alter the equilibrium constant of a reaction (K_eq) so that more reactant can be converted to product.
- They increase the maximal rate of the chemical reaction (V_max).
- They lower the activation energy, thereby speeding up the conversion of reactants to products.


Question: In the growth of a population, the point at which natality and mortality rates are equal to one another is referred to as

Choices:
- a population crash
- a population explosion
- zero population growth
- exponential growth


Question: The wings of a bat and the wings of a butterfly are

Choices:
- homologous structures
- analogous structures
- vestigial structures
- dissimilar in form and function


Question: The cell type comprising the pith tissue centered within a dicot stem is the

Choices:
- parenchyma
- sclerenchyma
- vascular cambium
- vascular bundle


Question: Mobile regions of DNA capable of inserting themselves into an existing genome are

Choices:
- prions
- cistrons
- introns
- transposons


Question: The process in which pioneer species colonize a bare substrate such as rock, sand, or glacial till is known as

Choices:
- weathering
- stabilizing succession
- secondary succession
- primary succession


Question: Brood parasites such as the cuckoo successfully trick other species of birds into rearing their young by exploiting the host birds' instinctive response to the loud begging cues of a fledgling in their nest. The genes that allow the host bird species to be duped into rearing the cuckoo fledglings to the detriment of their own offspring most likely remain in the gene pool of the population because

Choices:
- on average, the host birds' response allows them to rear their own young efficiently by feeding only those who indicate they are hungry
- the maximum fitness of the duped bird is not compromised when the bird rears an interloper of another species
- on average, little energy is spent on rearing a fledgling bird, whether it is an interloper or one's own
- the maximum fitness of the cuckoo would then be reduced


Question: Cell motility, as viewed in a cultured fibroblast, encompasses all of the following EXCEPT

Choices:
- adhesion plaques
- vinculin
- clathrin
- lamellipodia


Question: According to Hamilton’s rule, an altruistic trait can evolve if c < br, where c is the fitness cost of the altruistic behavior to the donor, b is the fitness benefit to the recipient, and r is the

Choices:
- coefficient of relatedness
- frequency of the altruistic allele
- inbreeding coefficient
- rate of reciprocity


Question: Adaptations of plants to minimize water loss in environments with high temperatures include which of the following?

Choices:
- Numerous stomata
- Thin cuticles
- Spines instead of leaves
- Large surface-to-volume ratios


Question: All of the following might be found in connective tissue EXCEPT

Choices:
- thrombin
- glycosaminoglycans
- collagens
- fibroblasts


Question: Which of the following is typically NOT found in normal somatic cells of a human male?

Choices:
- The entire genetic information possessed by the original zygote
- An inactivated X chromosome
- Forty-four autosomes
- A diploid nucleus


Question: The members of a bird species capable of nesting in treetops or on the ledges of nearby cliffs make their homes only in the treetops due to the established presence of a more aggressive bird species on the cliff ledges. With respect to habitat, the treetop-nesting birds are utilizing

Choices:
- their fundamental niche only
- their realistic niche only
- their ecological niche only
- neither their fundamental niche nor their realistic niche


Question: All of the following characteristics are typical of r-selected species EXCEPT

Choices:
- high reproductive rate
- small body size
- occupancy of unstable environments
- high competitive ability


Question: A DNA strand with the sequence 5′ CGA TTG 3′ would be complementary to the sequence

Choices:
- 5′ GCU AAC 3′
- 5′ GCT AAC 3′
- 5′ GTT AGC 3′
- 5′ CAA TCG 3′


Question: Ferns undergo alternation of generations in which a

Choices:
- dominant sporophyte alternates with an independent gametophyte
- dominant gametophyte alternates with a dependent sporophyte
- sporophyte and a gametophyte have equal life spans
- gametophyte produces gametes by meiosis


Question: Which of the following statements concerning a sarcomere of a striated muscle (such as skeletal muscle) is correct?

Choices:
- During contraction H zones become elongated.
- In the relaxed position tropomyosin impedes myosin's access to the binding site of actin.
- Each myosin helical tail contains an actinbinding site and an ATP-hydrolyzing site.
- The proteins troponin and tropomyosin constitute the thick and thin filaments, respectively.


Question: Aggressive ants live in the swollen thorns of a small tropical tree and feed on oil-rich bodies that the tree produces at the tips of its leaflets. Which of the following experiments best tests the hypothesis that ants defend the plant by either killing or chasing away leaf-feeding insects?

Choices:
- Remove ants and measure subsequent leaf damage.
- Remove oil-rich bodies and measure subsequent ant density.
- Remove the thorns and measure subsequent density of ants.
- Remove leaf-feeding insects and measure subsequent ant density.


Question: The sight organs of crustaceans and insects contain ommatidia, which make up the individual visual units of the

Choices:
- eyespot
- simple eye
- compound eye
- binocular eye


Question: An embryologist studying the development of a vertebrate organism from the zygote stage to fetus would be justified in drawing which of the following conclusions?

Choices:
- Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.
- Early embryos display identical features of their class, order, and species.
- An early human embryo has features in common with early fish and avian embryos.
- A human embryo displays features of adult fish and birds in the course of its development.


Question: A stem-boring beetle has laid its eggs in the center of a 5-year-old wood twig, and the eggs have matured into larvae. In proper order (inside to outside), what tissues and tissue regions would the larvae encounter as they eat their way toward the outside of the twig? (For simplicity, assume that the epidermis has already fallen off completely.)

Choices:
- Pith; primary xylem; secondary xylem; vascular cambium; primary phloem; secondary phloem; cortex
- Pith; secondary xylem; primary xylem; vascular cambium; secondary phloem; primary phloem; cortex
- Pith; secondary xylem; primary xylem; vascular cambium; primary phloem; secondary phloem; cortex
- Pith; primary xylem; secondary xylem; vascular cambium; secondary phloem; primary phloem; cortex


Question: The following pairs were placed in solution together. Which two could be separated by performing low-speed centrifugation?

Choices:
- DNA and mRNA
- Nuclei and secretory vesicles
- Golgi apparatus and endoplasmic reticulum
- Lysosomes and endosomes


Question: Which of the following would increase the rate at which a gas diffuses between the alveoli of the lung and the blood within a pulmonary capillary?

Choices:
- Decreasing the partial pressure gradient of the gas
- Decreasing the solubility of the gas in water
- Increasing the total surface area available for diffusion
- Decreasing the rate of blood flow through the pulmonary capillary


Question: The structures that act as sites of gas exchange in a woody stem are the

Choices:
- lenticels
- terminal buds
- nodes
- internodes


Question: Natural enemies have been implicated as a strong selective force for all of the following EXCEPT

Choices:
- aposematic coloration
- chemical defenses
- masting (synchronous fruiting)
- lekking behavior


Question: Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of introns?

Choices:
- They occur only in eukaryotes.
- They represent noncoding regions.
- They are found interspersed with exons on a region of DNA that codes for a polypeptide chain.
- They are excised from the primary transcript before it gains a 5' cap and a 3' poly(A)tail.


Question: A healthy person sitting at rest consciously begins to breathe too fast. Which of the following describes the change in the person’s blood caused by this hyperventilation?

Choices:
- A decrease in partial pressure of carbon dioxide and an increase in concentration of hydrogen ions
- A decrease in partial pressure of carbon dioxide and a decrease in concentration of hydrogen ions
- An increase in partial pressure of carbon dioxide and an increase in concentration of hydrogen ions
- An increase in partial pressure of carbon dioxide and a decrease in concentration of hydrogen ions


Question: Which of the following is the correct anatomical order of structures in the mammalian female reproductive tract?

Choices:
- Oviduct, uterus, rete, vagina
- Oviduct, epididymis, uterus, vagina
- Ovary, oviduct, uterus, vagina
- Ovary, uterus, vagina, rete


Question: A marine ecosystem region characterized by penetrance of solar radiation and upwelling of nutrients is the

Choices:
- bathyl zone
- neritic zone
- pelagic zone
- benthyl zone


Question: In humans, a hereditary disorder called xeroderma pigmentosum (XP) can result in the inability to repair ultraviolet damage to DNA. Which of the following molecular lesions is most likely to accrue in individuals with XP?

Choices:
- Thymine dimers
- Deamination of cytosine
- Depurination
- Single strand DNA breaks


Question: Chemosynthetic bacteria can produce their own food despite their lack of photonabsorbing pigments because the chemosynthetic bacteria derive energy by

Choices:
- oxidizing inorganic substances such as ammonia, sulfur, or hydrogen
- reducing inorganic substances such as ammonia, sulfur, or hydrogen
- oxidizing organic compounds
- transducing light energy into chemical energy


Question: All of the following may serve as intracellular messengers EXCEPT

Choices:
- calcium ions
- cAMP
- acetylcholine
- inositol 1,4,5-triphosphate


Question: All of the following statements about plant embryogenesis are correct EXCEPT:

Choices:
- The suspensor is derived from the basal cell.
- Cotyledons are derived from the apical cell.
- Shoot apical meristem formation occurs after seed formation.
- Precursors of all three plant tissue systems are formed during embryogenesis.


Question: Mouse sperm contain receptor proteins that bind to a glycoprotein (ZP3) in the zona pellucida of mouse eggs. Binding of ZP3 receptors to ZP3 initiates the sperm’s acrosomal reaction. All of the following experimental observations would be expected EXCEPT:

Choices:
- Injecting eggs with antibodies that bind to ZP3 blocks in vitro fertilization.
- Incubating sperm with purified ZP3 prior to mixing sperm and eggs blocks in vitro fertilization.
- Incubating eggs with antibodies that bind to ZP3 blocks in vitro fertilization.
- Coating synthetic beads with a different glycoprotein, ZP2, fails to lead to sperm aggregation on the beads.


Question: Which of the following factors does NOT promote linkage disequilibrium?

Choices:
- Asexual reproduction
- Coadapted gene complexes
- Epistasis
- Random mating


Question: In an experiment, the first cleavage plane of an amphibian zygote was manipulated so that the gray crescent was contained in only one of the two blastomeres that result from the first cleavage. The two blastomeres were then separated. What is the expected fate of the blastomeres?

Choices:
- The blastomere with the gray crescent will grow in size more quickly than the one without the gray crescent.
- The blastomere with the gray crescent will form a complete, but small, embryo.
- The blastomere without the gray crescent will form a complete, but small, embryo.
- The blastomere with the gray crescent will stop dividing and die before the second cleavage.


Question: Nerve outgrowth from a developing neuron begins at the growth cone, located at the tip of the axon. Microspikes of the growth cone extend and retract in order to move the growth cone forward. Exposure of the neuron to cytochasalin B at this stage of development causes

Choices:
- microtubules in the axon to undergo reversible dissociation
- microtubules in the axon to undergo irreversible dissociation
- microfilaments in the microspike to undergo reversible depolymerization
- microfilaments in the microspike to undergo irreversible depolymerization


Question: Monoclonal antisera are distinguished from polyclonal antisera in which of the following ways?

Choices:
- Each type of antibody in a monoclonal antiserum reacts against a single region of a single antigen; each type of antibody in a polyclonal antiserum reacts against multiple regions of different antigens.
- A monoclonal antibody reacts against multiple regions of a single antigen; a polyclonal antibody reacts against a single region of related antigens.
- A monoclonal antiserum contains antibodies secreted from the descendants of a single B lymphocyte; a polyclonal antiserum contains antibodies secreted from the descendants of different B lymphocytes.
- A monoclonal antiserum contains antibodies secreted from the descendants of a single B lymphocyte; a polyclonal antiserum contains antibodies secreted from the descendants of both B and T lymphocytes.


Question: The first groups of animals to develop lung tissue adequate to support their respiratory requirements without the use of supplementary gas exchange organs were the

Choices:
- amphibians
- reptiles
- mammals
- trematoda


Question: Which of the following is a biological attribute that would most likely allow a species to become cosmopolitan in distribution?

Choices:
- Extreme habitat specialization
- K-selected reproductive rate
- Limited dispersal abilities
- Capacity for long-distance dispersal


Question: In the formation of the earliest cells, which of the following components most likely arose first?

Choices:
- Nucleus
- Plasma membrane
- Mitochondrion
- Flagellum


Question: Which of the following facts was established prior to 1859, the year in which Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species?

Choices:
- DNA provides the macromolecular basis of heredity.
- Mendelian principles explain why some traits are dominant and others are recessive.
- Prokaryotes include two major domains, the Bacteria and the Archaea.
- There exist fossilized remains of species that have become extinct.


Question: Fungi participate in each of the following EXCEPT

Choices:
- photosynthesis to produce glucose
- fermentation to produce alcohol
- association with humans to produce ringworm
- association with the roots of plants to form mycorrhizae


Question: In chloroplasts, a certain protein is found in the lumen of the thylakoid (thylakoid space). It is transcribed in the nucleus and synthesized on cytoplasmic ribosomes. How many membrane bilayers must this protein cross to reach its final location?

Choices:
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four


Question: During the mammalian cardiac cycle, a volume of blood equivalent to ventricular stroke volume is transferred from the more compliant venous side to the less compliant arterial side of the circulation. In terms of pressures within the venous and arterial compartments, this transfer results in

Choices:
- no change in pressure in either compartment
- no effect on venous pressure and a small increase in arterial pressure
- an increase in venous pressure and an equal but opposite decrease in arterial pressure
- little effect on venous pressure and a large increase in arterial pressure


Question: Which of the following statements concerning the Golgi apparatus of a eukaryote is correct?

Choices:
- It is oriented in the cytoplasm so that its cis face is closest to the endoplasmic reticulum.
- It is typically associated with small secretory vesicles located near its cis face.
- Its composite flattened cisternae are continuous with one another.
- Glycosylation of certain secretory proteins occurs prior to the protein's entry into its lumen.


Question: The first point of entry of water at the roots of a monocot plant is through the cytoplasm of cells of the

Choices:
- root cap
- Casparian strip
- pericycle
- endoderm


Question: Which of the following plant cells undergoes programmed cell death to become functional?

Choices:
- Phloem sieve tube member
- Xylem vessel member
- Stomatal guard cell
- Root cap cell


Question: Which of the following characteristics distinguishes angiosperms from gymnosperms?

Choices:
- Perennial growth
- True roots
- Apical growth
- Seeds enclosed in ovaries


Question: A species of goose nests on both cliffs and beaches near the ocean. Soon after hatching, all chicks must make their way to the ocean. Chicks from cliff nests must tumble down the cliff to get to the ocean, and many are killed by the fall. Which of the following is most consistent with the hypothesis that cliff nesting is adaptive in this goose species?

Choices:
- Many more geese nest on the beaches than on the cliffs.
- Cliff-side nesting confers a higher fitness than does beach nesting.
- Chicks from cliff nests instinctively step off the cliffs at the appropriate time.
- More chicks survive the fall from the cliffs than are killed.


Question: Immunoglobulins having epsilon heavy chains and located on the plasma membranes of mast cells and basophilic leukocytes belong to the class of antibodies called

Choices:
- IgE
- IgA
- IgD
- IgM


Question: A fluorescent molecule of 1,000 daltons injected into one cell is observed to enter an adjacent cell by passing through a

Choices:
- spot desmosome
- belt desmosome
- gap junction
- tight junction


Question: Annelids and arthropods are similar to each other in that members of both phyla

Choices:
- have segmented bodies
- have a closed circulatory system
- conduct gas exchange by diffusion through a moist membrane
- have well-developed sense organs


Question: Approximately what fraction of the human genome encodes proteins?

Choices:
- 2%
- 25%
- 50%
- 90%


Question: Which of the following statements is true of air as compared to water?

Choices:
- Air provides more physical support.
- Air has a higher O2 concentration.
- Air offers more resistance to motion.
- Air has more thermal inertia.


Question: Which of the following is true of organisms belonging to the kingdom Protista?

Choices:
- They are eukaryotic.
- They include the cyanobacteria.
- They are heterotrophic.
- They possess cell walls composed of peptidoglycan.


Question: The section of chromosome that serves as the site of attachment by the mitotic spindle during cell division is the

Choices:
- chromatophore
- chromomere
- kinetochore
- centriole


Question: A plant that grows along a trellis exhibits

Choices:
- thigmotropism
- phototropism
- gravidotropism
- negative gravidotropism


Question: If the activity of an enzyme is constant over a broad range of pH values, it is likely that

Choices:
- only ionizing groups on the enzyme participate in the reaction
- only ionizing groups on the substrate participate in the reaction
- ionizing groups on both the enzyme and substrate participate in the reaction
- no ionizing groups on the enzyme or substrate participate in the reaction


Question: In garden peas, the allele for tall plants (D) is completely dominant to the allele for dwarf plants (d) and the allele for violet flower color (W) is completely dominant to the allele for white flower color (w). In a cross between a tall violet plant, with the genotype DDWw, and a dwarf white plant, what phenotypic ratio of the progeny would be expected from this cross?

Choices:
- All tall violet
- 1 tall violet: 1 dwarf violet
- 1 tall violet: 1 tall white: 1 dwarf violet: 1 dwarf white
- 1 tall violet: 1 tall white


Question: Cancer cells grown in culture are similar to normal cells grown in culture in that they

Choices:
- divide an indefinite number of times
- do not display contact inhibition
- require a surface for attachment in order to grow
- proliferate to the same cell density


Question: Which of the following techniques could be used to demonstrate protein binding to specific DNA sequences?

Choices:
- Western blot hybridization
- Northern blot hybridization
- Southern blot hybridization
- Electrophoretic mobility shift assay


Question: Adequate serum levels of calcium are maintained in humans by the secretion of

Choices:
- thyroxine
- glucagon
- growth hormone
- parathyroid hormone


Question: The amino acid ornithine is regenerated during each turn of the urea cycle in a similar manner to which of the following participants in the citric acid cycle?

Choices:
- Succinate
- Fumarate
- Oxaloacetate
- Citrate


Question: Which is a characteristic unique to angiosperms?

Choices:
- Wind-borne pollen
- A dominant sporophyte life cycle
- Alteration of generations
- Double fertilization


Question: Mammals are homeostatic for all of the following EXCEPT

Choices:
- body temperature
- blood glucose concentration
- blood pH
- metabolic rate


Question: The crouching of very young birds in response to a predator’s shape overhead is an example of

Choices:
- a conditioned response
- a fixed action pattern
- an imprinted behavior
- learned behavior


Question: Among primates, a high degree of sexual dimorphism in a species usually indicates intense competition between

Choices:
- males in order to obtain individual food resources
- males in order to obtain mates
- females in order to obtain individual food resources
- females in order to obtain mates


Question: Which of the following tissues in an actively photosynthesizing plant would have the highest rate of oxygen production?

Choices:
- Cortex
- Palisade mesophyll
- Epidermis
- Vascular cambium


Question: A recent theory concerning an unusual rise in asthma attacks following a thunderstorm proposes that while pollen grains at 5 microns are too large to enter the airways, their exposure to water precipitates the release of starch granules as a result of osmotic shock. The starch granules are small enough to enter the lower airways and trigger an asthmatic attack. If this theory is true, which of the following is a correct statement?

Choices:
- The interior of the pollen grains was hypotonic compared to the surrounding environment.
- The interior of the pollen grains had a higher osmotic pressure than did the surrounding environment.
- The pollen grains underwent plasmolysis prior to releasing their contents.
- The pollen grains underwent shrinking before they ruptured and released their contents.


Question: Hybrids between some related species of plants are sterile because the parent plants had different chromosome numbers. Occasionally the chromosome number of such a hybrid plant doubles spontaneously. Which of the following best describes the descendants of those plants with the double chromosome number?

Choices:
- The plant with the double chromosome number would be genetically defective and have no descendants.
- The descendants would be at a selective advantage because of the increased ability to introgress.
- The descendants would be reproductively successful because they could backcross with the parental species.
- The descendants would regain the ability to reproduce sexually because chromosomes could pair normally.


Question: Phalloidin is a toxin made by the death cap mushroom. The toxin binds to actin subunits and disrupts actin function. Which of the following structures would be most directly affected by phalloidin?

Choices:
- Intermediate filaments
- Collagen fibers
- Microfilaments
- Microtubules


Question: Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium generally assumes all of the following EXCEPT

Choices:
- a large population
- genetic drift
- random mating
- absence of selection


Question: Which of the following statements about fungi is NOT true?

Choices:
- They all are eukaryotic.
- They all have rigid cell walls.
- Most are filamentous.
- Some are photosynthetic.


Question: Which of the following is encoded by the src oncogene and catalyzes the specific addition of phosphate groups to cellular proteins?

Choices:
- Protein phosphatase
- Adenylate cyclase
- G protein-linked receptor
- Tyrosine kinase


Question: Both C4 and CAM plants employ physiological and biochemical strategies to reduce photorespiration. Which of the following is an accurate comparison of the two strategies?

Choices:
- C4 plants fix CO2 as the 4-carbon acid oxaloacetate, while CAM plants fix CO2 as the 5-carbon acid ribulose 1, 5-bisphosphate.
- C4 plants fix CO2 in the mesophyll but carry out the Calvin cycle in the bundle sheath, while CAM plants fix CO2 and carry out the Calvin cycle in the mesophyll.
- C4 plants fix CO2 in the bundle sheath but carry out the Calvin cycle in the mesophyll, while CAM plants fix CO2 and carry out the Calvin cycle in the bundle sheath.
- C4 plants store CO2 as phosphoglycolate, while CAM plants store CO2 as oxaloacetate.


Question: Which of the following depicts the correct sequence of membranes of the chloroplast, beginning with the innermost membrane and ending with the outermost membrane?

Choices:
- Thylakoid membrane, inner membrane, outer membrane
- Inner membrane, outer membrane, thylakoid membrane
- Outer membrane, inner membrane, thylakoid membrane
- Strama, outer membrane, inner membrane


Question: Antibiotics that affect bacterial cells interfere with all of the following EXCEPT

Choices:
- peptidoglycan synthesis
- protein synthesis
- DNA synthesis
- reverse transcriptase


Question: The polytene chromosomes seen in Drosophila silvarentis with the aid of a light microscope are

Choices:
- not actively carrying out transcription
- produced only during mitosis
- produced by repeated rounds of DNA replication followed by nuclear division
- multiple copies of a single chromosome


Question: Which of the following agents will induce polyploidy in a dividing eukaryote?

Choices:
- Penicillin
- Colchicine
- Tetracycline
- Puromycin


Question: Which of the following statements about mitochondria and chloroplasts is generally true?

Choices:
- Plants have chloroplasts but no mitochondria; animals have mitochondria but no chloroplasts.
- Plants have chloroplasts but no mitochondria; fungi have mitochondria but no chloroplasts.
- Plants and fungi have chloroplasts but no mitochondria; animals have only mitochondria.
- Plants have both chloroplasts and mitochondria; animals and fungi have only mitochondria.


Question: How do cyanobacteria differ from green unicellular algae?

Choices:
- Cyanobacteria reduce sulfur compounds.
- Cyanobacteria lack cell walls.
- Cyanobacteria have no nuclei.
- Green algae produce cell membranes.


Question: Stabilization of the unique coiled structure of an alpha helix in a protein is primarily attributed to (A) hydrogen bonding between the peptide backbone atoms

Choices:
- hydrogen bonding between the peptide backbone atoms
- disulfide bridges between cysteine side chains
- carbohydrate moieties attached to polar amino acids
- peptide linkages that covalently bond amino acids


Question: The target of digestion of a nucleosome dimer to nucleosome monomers by DNase is

Choices:
- the H1 histone
- histones H2A, H2B, H3, and H4
- the nucleosome core
- linker DNA


Question: A prokaryote that is thermophilic and methanogenic and has isoprenylglycerol ethers in its membrane instead of phospholipids is most likely

Choices:
- a proteobacterium
- a spirochete
- a member of the genus Chlamydia
- an archaeon


Question: All of the following environmental conditions increase the rate of transpiration from plants EXCEPT

Choices:
- high temperature
- high relative humidity
- low relative humidity
- wind


Question: Which of the following statements about embryonic cleavage is NOT true?

Choices:
- The presence of yolk inhibits cleavage.
- Telolecithal eggs undergo meroblastic cleavage.
- The vegetal pole undergoes cleavage more readily than does the animal pole
- The rapid mitotic divisions of cleavage directly give rise to blastomeres.


Question: In eukaryotic photosynthetic cells, which of the following occurs when electrons flow cyclically through the electron transport chain associated with photosystem I?

Choices:
- Synthesis of ATP
- Reduction of NADP+ to NADPH
- Release of O2
- Reduction of CO2 to sugar


Question: Many marine birds drink seawater yet maintain their internal osmolarity at a constant level that is hypoosmotic to seawater. Which of the following physiological strategies best explains how the birds maintain their tissue osmolarity?

Choices:
- Marine birds absorb water from the environment through specialized salt-exchange glands and produce large volumes of dilute urine in the kidneys.
- Marine birds absorb salts from the environment through specialized salt-exchange glands and produce large volumes of concentrated urine in the kidneys.
- Marine birds excrete salts through specialized salt-exchange glands and excrete small volumes of urine.
- Marine birds excrete salts and nitrogenous wastes through specialized nasal glands.


Question: A species of small rodent eats seeds from only one species of pine. In normal years, a pair of these rodents will have a litter of two or three. It is unusual for small rodents to have such small litter sizes. The rodents are most likely to exhibit which other characteristic?

Choices:
- Moderate sexual size dimorphism
- High parental investment
- Precocial young
- Frequent extrapair matings


Question: Which of the following sources makes the greatest contribution to the dry mass of organic matter that comprises an oak tree?

Choices:
- Organic molecules from decaying matter in the soil that are taken up by the roots
- Mineral nutrients dissolved in groundwater that are taken up by the roots
- Water that is taken up by the roots and carbon dioxide from the air
- Endosperm located in the cotyledons of the acorn


Question: Which of the following must be true in order for evolution to have occurred?

Choices:
- The frequencies of some alleles in a population's gene pool has changed over successive generations.
- The frequencies of some alleles in a population's gene pool has changed during the organisms' lifetimes.
- The frequencies of each allele in a population's gene pool has remained constant over successive generations.
- The frequencies of each allele in an organism's genotype has remained constant within the organism's lifetime.


Question: From an evolutionary perspective, the optimality theory as applied to a given trait is best represented by the idea that

Choices:
- if the benefits gained from the trait exceed the cost of the trait to the animal performing them, that trait will persist in the genome
- if the trait reaps the best return for the cost relative to alternative forms of the trait, that trait will win out over the alternative forms
- beneficial traits are always worth the cost to the organism in energy and physiology, so those traits will persist in the genome
- the relative fitness of an organism must be improved due to a specific trait in order for the trait to remain in a population's gene pool


Question: In the presence of alcohol dehydrogenase, the rate of reduction of acetaldehyde to ethanol increases as the concentration of acetaldehyde is increased. Eventually, the rate of the reaction reaches a maximum, after which point further increases in the concentration of acetaldehyde have no effect. Which of the following is true at the maximal rate of reaction?

Choices:
- Nearly all of the enzyme molecules are interacting with acetaldehyde molecules.
- The activation energy of the reaction decreases.
- The change in free energy of the reaction decreases.
- The enzyme is no longer specific for acetaldehyde.


Question: Which of the following best explains how mutations in DNA can result in the expression of a new phenotype?

Choices:
- A different polypeptide is produced.
- The polarity of tRNA becomes the opposite of that of DNA.
- Nucleic acids are methylated.
- The gene is now read in the 3′ to 5′ direction.


Question: A competitive inhibitor of an enzyme exerts its effect by

Choices:
- irreversibly forming covalent links with the enzyme, effectively preventing the enzyme's dissociation from it
- irreversibly modifying some of the amino acid residues that help to comprise the enzyme's active site
- competing with the substrate molecule for the same enzyme but a different binding site than the substrate binding site
- reversibly decreasing the number of enzyme molecules that are available to bind substrates


Question: The ability of the brain to detect differences in stimulus intensity is best explained by the fact that which of the following varies with the stimulus intensity?

Choices:
- The amplitude of the action potential
- The threshold potential
- The number of action potentials per second
- The number of synapses crossed


Question: Which of the following is the best explanation for why net primary productivity in terrestrial ecosystems tends to increase toward the tropics?

Choices:
- The higher species diversity in the tropics tends to increase plant growth.
- There are lower metabolic costs to plant growth in the tropics.
- The availability of water and warm temperatures in the tropics fosters photosynthesis.
- The tropics have more predators that minimize herbivory.


Question: Proteins were shown to move about in a plane of the plasma membrane when mouse cellsurface proteins and human cell-surface proteins were observed to integrate along a fused mouse-human cell plasma membrane. Which of the following cell culture techniques was most likely employed in order to yield these results?

Choices:
- Producing a heterokaryon
- Producing a hybrid cell
- Isolating an immortal variant cell from culture and using it to create a cell line
- Inserting a tumor-inducing virus into a normal cell to initiate transformation


Question: Gene flow between populations results in

Choices:
- an increase in genetic homogeneity in the metapopulation
- an increase in the rate of deleterious mutations in the metapopulation
- an increased likelihood of speciation
- disruption of Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium in the metapopulation


Question: A subunit of DNA and protein consisting of 134-base-pair long stretches of DNA surrounding a protein octomer is called (a)

Choices:
- histone
- chromatin
- nucleosome
- solenoid


Question: Which of the following would be the most dependable environmental signal that a plant in a temperate ecosystem could use to initiate flowering at the correct time of the year?

Choices:
- Circadian rhythm
- Photoperiod
- Changing air temperature
- Fluctuations in abscisic acid levels


Question: Mitochondria isolated and placed in a buffered solution with a low pH begin to manufacture ATP. Which of the following is the best explanation for the effect of low external pH?

Choices:
- It increases the concentration of OH-, causing the mitochondria to pump H+ to the intermembrane space.
- It increases the OH- concentration in the mitochondria matrix.
- It increases the acid concentration in the mitochondria matrix.
- It increases diffusion of H+ from the intermembrane space to the matrix.


Question: An organism belonging to the nekton is which one of the following?

Choices:
- Whale
- Barnacle
- Cyanobacterium
- Protist


Question: A behavioral response called a fixed action pattern shown by animals

Choices:
- occurs the second time an animal is exposed to the correct stimulus at the appropriate time in its life
- occurs in the absence of sensory feedback
- is a motor response which once released may be terminated spontaneously
- is triggered by a number of sensory signals in the animal's environment


Question: Which of the following adaptations would limit pollination by bees and promote hummingbird pollination?

Choices:
- Patterns of ultraviolet color on the petals
- Modified petals to provide a landing space
- Pendant (hanging) red-colored flowers
- Nectar with high sugar concentration produced in limited amounts


Question: Double fertilization is a unique feature of flowering plants. In this process, one sperm unites with the egg to yield a zygote. The second sperm unites with the polar nuclei to initiate the formation of the

Choices:
- megagametophyte
- endodermis
- embryo
- endosperm


Question: Mutation of homeotic cluster genes often results in which of the following developmental defects in Drosophila?

Choices:
- Absence of a group of contiguous segments
- Transformation of one segment into another
- Polarity defects in every segment along the anterior-posterior axis
- Tumor formation in imaginal discs


Question: Root pressure created by a plant's roots causes water to enter the roots by

Choices:
- translocation
- adhesion
- osmosis
- capillary action


Question: Cellular uptake of cholesterol occurs through internalization of low density lipoproteincholesterol complexes. Cholesterol uptake involves all of the following EXCEPT

Choices:
- cell-surface receptors
- adhesion plaques
- endosome formation
- receptor-mediated endocytosis


Question: Two xylem plant cell types that provide support and conduct water and minerals are the

Choices:
- collenchyma and sclerenchyma
- sieve tube members and companion cells
- tracheids and vessel elements
- vessel elements and companion cells


Question: Which of the following statements about excretory organs is true?

Choices:
- The kidneys of saltwater fishes produce urine hyperosmotic to their tissues.
- The kidneys of desert mammals produce urine that is hypoosmotic to the urine of freshwater fishes.
- Malpighian tubules allow insects to excrete waste through the exoskeleton.
- Juxtamedullary nephrons in the mammalian kidney allow the organism to produce hyperosmotic urine.


Question: Mimicry is a strategy that has evolved through natural selection to increase the fitness of organisms to their environment. Which of the following represents a form of Batesian mimicry?

Choices:
- A type of millipede that is toxic to a toad is permanently avoided by the toad following the toad's initial attempt to consume it.
- A moth exhibits false eyes at its tail end in order to disorient predators.
- A moth exhibits nearly identical coloration to that of a stinging bee.
- A ground-nesting gull chick displays a coloration pattern that is nearly indistinguishable from its surroundings.


Question: Keystone species are thought to have profound effects on the structure and composition of ecological communities because they

Choices:
- tend to reduce diversity by eliminating food resources for other species
- provide the foundation for food webs
- are more abundant than most other species in their communities
- can prevent superior competitors from driving inferior competitors to local extinction


Question: Which of the following is a reason that geneticists use mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) to study the relatedness of animal populations?

Choices:
- mtDNA mutates at a slower rate than nuclear DNA.
- mtDNA is passed from mother to child and is free from recombination that occurs between pairs of chromosomes.
- There are few single nucleotide polymorphisms in the hypervariable, noncoding regions.
- All mitochondrial proteins are coded for by mitochondrial genes.


Question: A quote from a natural resources text states: "Whenever the original ecosystem becomes restructured by man, it tends to become simplified, with a resultant disruption of the stabilizing influences of density-dependent regulatory factors." This implies that in a disturbed ecosystem

Choices:
- there exist large populations of a low number of species
- population levels of a species are kept at equilibrium through natural regulatory mechanisms
- a given prey organism is subject to higher predation rates by more diverse predators
- a given prey organism is less likely to undergo a population surge


Question: A female fruit fly bearing linked genes that produce the phenotype gray body and normal wings mates with a male fruit fly of phenotype black body and vestigial wings. The presence of gray-bodied, vestigialwinged flies among the progeny is best explained by

Choices:
- crossing over
- independent assortment
- segregation of alleles
- penetrance


Question: Which of the following active pools of carbon is the largest on Earth and contributes the most to carbon cycling?

Choices:
- The atmosphere
- Rain-forest vegetation
- Recoverable fossil fuels
- The oceans


Question: Charles Darwin's proposed conditions for natural selection encompass all of the following with regard to a given population EXCEPT

Choices:
- inheritance of both "fit" and "unfit" genes
- differential survival and reproductive success
- competition for limited resources
- overproduction of offspring


Question: Which of the following is a correct statement about the cohesion-tension theory for the ascent of water in the xylem?

Choices:
- The evaporation of water from leaf mesophyll cells generates tension in the water column.
- Water moves from a source region with high hydrostatic pressure to a sink region with low hydrostatic pressure.
- The cohesion of water molecules is responsible for the formation of embolisms (air bubbles) in the water column.
- Living cells of the xylem provide the main conduit for an ascent of water.


Question: In fungi, cell walls are reinforced by which of the following?

Choices:
- Chitin
- Silica
- Lignin
- Collagen fibers


Question: In plants, proton pumps are involved in the process of loading sugars into the phloem for transport. Which of the following is true about this process?

Choices:
- It is passive.
- It depends on DNA.
- It requires ATP.
- It translocates starch.


Question: Which of the following characteristics is predicted for an early-successional plant community?

Choices:
- High niche divergence among co-occurring species
- High ratios of primary production to standing-crop biomass
- High frequency of K-selected species
- High detrital biomass


Question: Which of the following is the symplastic pathway for the movement of sucrose from the site of photosynthesis in mesophyll cells into the phloem?

Choices:
- Fibers, phloem parenchyma, companion cell, sieve tube
- Phloem parenchyma, fibers, bundle sheath, tracheids
- Companion cells, phloem parenchyma, fibers, sieve tube
- Bundle sheath, phloem parenchyma, companion cell, sieve tube


Question: What is true for a type-Ia ("type one-a") supernova?

Choices:
- This type occurs in binary systems.
- This type occurs in young galaxies.
- This type produces gamma-ray bursts.
- This type produces high amounts of X-rays.


Question: If you know both the actual brightness of an object and its apparent brightness from your location then with no other information you can estimate:

Choices:
- Its speed relative to you
- Its composition
- Its size
- Its distance from you


Question: Why is the sky blue?

Choices:
- Because the molecules that compose the Earth's atmosphere have a blue-ish color.
- Because the sky reflects the color of the Earth's oceans.
- Because the atmosphere preferentially scatters short wavelengths.
- Because the Earth's atmosphere preferentially absorbs all other colors.


Question: You’ve made a scientific theory that there is an attractive force between all objects. When will your theory be proven to be correct?

Choices:
- The first time you drop a bowling ball and it falls to the ground proving your hypothesis.
- After you’ve repeated your experiment many times.
- You can never prove your theory to be correct only “yet to be proven wrong”.
- When you and many others have tested the hypothesis.


Question: Which of the following is/are true?

Choices:
- Titan is the only outer solar system moon with a thick atmosphere
- Titan is the only outer solar system moon with evidence for recent geologic activity
- Titan's atmosphere is composed mostly of hydrocarbons
- A and D


Question: A comet of mass m impacts the earth (mass M radius R) at the minimum impact speed. What is the expression for the total energy released in the impact?

Choices:
- m*v
- 0.5*m/(R^3)
- 0.5*m*(2GM/R)
- 0.6*G(M^2)/R


Question: Some of Mars'water is frozen in the soil and the ice caps and some was lost due to solar wind stripping but much of the original water is thought to have been lost through another mechanism. What happened to this "lost"water?

Choices:
- it was stripped away by the magnetic field when it rapidly decreased in strength
- it was broken into hydrogen and oxygen by ultraviolet light and the hydrogen was lost through thermal escape
- it was consumed by a civilization of thirsty Martians
- it was vaporized during a period of intense volcanism and was lost to space through thermal escape


Question: Most rocks on the Moon's surface are older than those on the Earth's surface. The best evidence for this is:

Choices:
- Lunar rocks are composed of fragments pulverized by many impacts.
- Radioactive dating of lunar samples shows that they are older.
- The Moon's surface is more heavily eroded than the Earth's surface.
- The Moon's surface has more impact craters than the Earth's surface.


Question: What is the second most common element in the solar system?

Choices:
- Iron
- Hydrogen
- Methane
- Helium


Question: What is the source of the material that causes meteor showers?

Choices:
- Near-Earth asteroids gradually disintegrate and spread out along their orbital path. When the Earth passes through the orbit of an asteroid we are bombarded by sand-sized particles which cause a meteor shower.
- Near-Earth asteroids disintegrate as they enter Earth's atmosphere creating hundreds of bright meteors that appear to radiate from a single location in the sky.
- The nuclei of comets disintigrate as they enter Earth's atmosphere creating hundreds of bright meteors that appear to radiate from a central location in the sky.
- The nuclei of comets gradually disintegrate and spread out along the comet's orbital path. When the Earth passes through the orbit of a comet we are bombarded by sand-sized particles which cause a meteor shower.


Question: Why does the plasma (ion) tail of a comet always point away from the Sun?

Choices:
- Radiation pressure from the Sun's light pushes the ions away.
- The conservation of the angular momentum in the tail keeps it always pointing away from the Sun.
- The ions are following Keplerian orbits that lead away from the Sun.
- The solar wind electromagnetically "blows" the ions directly away from the Sun.


Question: How did Eratosthenes estimate the size of Earth in 240 B.C.?

Choices:
- By observing the duration of a solar eclipse.
- By measuring the size of Earth's shadow on the Moon in a lunar eclipse.
- By comparing the maximum altitude of the Sun in two cities at different latitudes at the same time on the same day.
- By sending fleets of ships around Earth.


Question: The Large Magellanic Cloud is ...

Choices:
- a dwarf galaxy orbiting the Milky Way.
- the closest planetary nebula to the Earth.
- a bright star cluster discovered by Magellan.
- the outer arm of the Milky Way named after Magellan.


Question: Why do we look for water-ice in craters at Mercury's pole?

Choices:
- Actually water-ice is all over Mercury and not just at the poles.
- The pole is the only place fortunate enough to have had comet impacts
- Radar from the earth can only see Mercury's poles.
- These craters contain the only permanently shadowed regions on Mercury


Question: The Milky Way is part of a giant supercluster with a diameter of 160 Mpc. What is the name of this supercluster?

Choices:
- Virgo
- Laniakea
- Sculptor
- Boötes


Question: On which planet in our solar system can you find the Great Red Spot?

Choices:
- Venus
- Mars
- Jupiter
- Saturn


Question: Why does Earth have the strongest magnetic field among the terrestrial worlds?

Choices:
- It is by far the largest terrestrial world.
- It is the most volcanically active world.
- It is the only one that has both a partially molten metallic core and reasonably rapid rotation.
- It rotates much faster than any other terrestrial world.


Question: Which of the following is not true?

Choices:
- The Earth and Venus are in a 1:1 orbital resonance (for every 1 Earth orbit there is exactly 1 Venus orbit)
- Neptune and Pluto are in a 3:2 orbital resonance (for every 3 Neptune orbits there are exactly 2 Pluto orbits)
- The Kirkwood Gaps in the asteroid belt are due to resonances with Jupiter
- Neptune and Pluto won't collide because of their orbital resonance


Question: Which of the following is/are common feature(s) of all fresh (i.e. not eroded) impact craters formed on solid surfaces:

Choices:
- ejecta
- raised rims
- central peaks
- A and B only


Question: From laboratory measurements we know that a particular spectral line formed by hydrogen appears at a wavelength of 486.1 nanometers (nm). The spectrum of a particular star shows the same hydrogen line appearing at a wavelength of 485.9 nm. What can we conclude?

Choices:
- The star is getting hotter.
- The star is getting colder.
- The star is moving toward us.
- The star is moving away from us.


Question: The lithosphere of a planet is the layer that consists of

Choices:
- the softer rocky material of the mantle.
- the lava that comes out of volcanoes.
- material between the crust and the mantle.
- the rigid rocky material of the crust and uppermost portion of the mantle.


Question: What is the Cassini division of Saturn's rings?

Choices:
- a dark ring visible from Earth composed of dark dusty particles
- the most opaque ring of Saturn made of highly reflective ice particles
- the widest ring of Saturn located between two large ring gaps
- a large gap visible from Earth produced by an orbital resonance with the moon Mimas


Question: Which of the following statements about sidereal and solar days is not true?

Choices:
- The time it takes for the Sun to make one circuit of our sky is one solar day.
- A solar day is 4 minutes longer than a sidereal day.
- A solar day represents more than 360° of rotation for the earth.
- The time it takes for the Moon to make one circuit of our sky is one solar day.


Question: Meteorites with high metal content probably are

Choices:
- pieces of comets rather than of asteroids.
- chunks of large differentiated asteroids that were shattered by collisions.
- chunks of rock chipped off the planet Mars.
- leftover chunks of rock from the earliest period in the formation of the solar system.


Question: Most people use C°(degree Celsius) to measure everyday temperatures. Astronomers prefer to use K (Kelvin) to measure temperatures. Approximately how many Kelvin are 25 C°?

Choices:
- 200 Kelvin
- 250 Kelvin
- 300 Kelvin
- 350 Kelvin


Question: The four big moons of Jupiter are Callisto Europa Ganymede and Io. Which one of them has the smallest distance to Jupiter?

Choices:
- Callisto
- Europa
- Ganymede
- Io


Question: Why are the season's in Mars' southern hemisphere so extreme?

Choices:
- because Mars is farther from the sun than the Earth
- because Mars has more carbon dioxide in its atmosphere than the Earth
- because Mars has a more eccentric orbit than the Earth
- because Mars' axis is more tilted than the Earth's


Question: What Mars mission will be landing on May 25 2008 and will dig a trench into (hopefully) ice-rich soil?

Choices:
- ExoMars
- Mars Exploration Rovers
- Mars Science Laboratory
- Phoenix Mars Lander


Question: What is the significance of the 1:2:4 resonance in the Jupiter's moons system?

Choices:
- The resonance pulls Io in different directions and generates heat.
- It makes the orbit of Io slightly elliptical.
- It creates a gap with no asteriods between the orbits.
- It prevents formation of the ring material into other moons.


Question: The terrestrial planet cores contain mostly metal because

Choices:
- the entire planets are made mostly of metal.
- metals condensed first in the solar nebula and the rocks then accreted around them.
- metals sank to the center during a time when the interiors were molten throughout.
- radioactivity created metals in the core from the decay of uranium.


Question: Why are the inner planets made of denser materials than the outer planets?

Choices:
- In the beginning when the protoplanetary disk was spinning faster centrifugal forces flung the lighter materials toward the outer parts of the solar nebula.
- In the inner part of the nebula only metals and rocks were able to condense because of the high temperatures whereas hydrogen compounds although more abundant were only able to condense in the cooler outer regions.
- Denser materials were heavier and sank to the center of the nebula.
- When the solar nebula formed a disk materials naturally segregated into bands and in our particular solar system the denser materials settled nearer the Sun while lighter materials are found in the outer part.


Question: What do meteorites reveal about the solar system?

Choices:
- They reveal that the early solar system consisted mostly of hydrogen and helium gas.
- They reveal that meteorites are much older than the comets and planets.
- They reveal that the age of the solar system is approximately 4.6 billion years.
- They reveal that the solar system once contained 10 planets.


Question: Venus shows evidence of which of the following surface processes?

Choices:
- Impacts
- Erosion
- Volcanism
- A B and C


Question: Planetary rings are

Choices:
- known to exist for all of the jovian planets.
- composed of a large number of individual particles that orbit their planet in accord with Kepler's third law.
- nearer to their planet than any of the planet's large moons.
- all of the above


Question: Suppose the angular separation of two stars is smaller than the angular resolution of your eyes. How will the stars appear to your eyes?

Choices:
- You will not be able to see these two stars at all.
- You will see two distinct stars.
- The two stars will look like a single point of light.
- The two stars will appear to be touching looking rather like a small dumbbell.


Question: What is not true of Jupiter's magnetic field?

Choices:
- it is about 20000 times stronger than Earth's magnetic field
- it traps charged particles from Io's volcanoes in a "plasma torus" around the planet
- it causes spectacular auroral displays at Jupiter's north and south poles
- it switches polarity every 11 years


Question: What does the astronomical term ecliptic describe?

Choices:
- The path of the Sun in the sky throughout a year.
- The axial tilt of the Earth throughout a year.
- The movement of the stars due to Earth’s rotation.
- The central line through the axis of rotation.


Question: The so-called dark energy is a model to explain ...

Choices:
- the radiation of black holes.
- the mass distribution of galaxies.
- the acceleration of the universe.
- the microwave background of the universe.


Question: How do scientists know that the majority of meteorites come from the asteroid belt?

Choices:
- Bubbles of gas trapped in the crystals within meteorites are identical to the gases trapped in asteroids.
- The spectra of some meteorites are similar to the spectra of asteroids in the asteroid belt.
- Collisions are common in the asteroid belt and we can track the fragments from their source asteroid to the Earth where they become meteorites.
- The asteroid belt is the only possible source of meteorites therefore they must originate there.


Question: Jupiter and the other jovian planets are sometimes called "gas giants." In what sense is this term misleading?

Choices:
- The materials they are made of are not normally gaseous in everyday experience.
- They actually contain a significant fraction of non-gaseous matter.
- The materials that make up these planets are primarily in the form of a plasma not a gas.
- Actually it's a great description because these worlds are big and gaseous throughout.


Question: Which of the following is not one of nor follows directly from Kepler's laws?

Choices:
- As a planet moves around its orbit it sweeps out equal areas in equal times.
- The orbit of each planet about the Sun is an ellipse with the Sun at one focus.
- The force of attraction between any two objects decreases with the square of the distance between their centers.
- A planet travels faster when it is nearer to the Sun and slower when it is farther from the Sun.


Question: The name of the black hole in the center of our Milky Way is ...

Choices:
- Altair A*
- Alsephina A*
- Fomalhaut A*
- Sagittarius A*


Question: Why is Saturn almost as big as Jupiter despite its smaller mass?

Choices:
- Jupiter's greater mass compresses it more thus increasing its density.
- Saturn has a larger proportion of hydrogen and helium than Jupiter and is therefore less dense.
- Jupiter's strong magnetic field constrains its size.
- Saturn is further from the Sun thus cooler and therefore less compact.


Question: Which of these has NOT been one of the main hypotheses considered for the origin of the Moon?

Choices:
- The Moon split from the Earth due to tidal forces.
- The Moon was captured into Earth orbit.
- The Earth and Moon co-accreted in the solar nebula.
- Earth was rotating so rapidly that the Moon split from it.


Question: We were first able to accurately measure the diameter of Pluto from:

Choices:
- a New Horizons flyby in the 1990s
- Hubble Space Telescope images that resolved Pluto's disk
- brightness measurements made during mutual eclipses of Pluto and Charon
- radar observations made by the Arecibo telescope


Question: According to the Solar Nebular theory what are asteroids and comets?

Choices:
- They are the shattered remains of collisions between planets.
- They are chunks of rock or ice that condensed long after the planets and moons had formed.
- They are chunks of rock or ice that were expelled from planets by volcanoes.
- They are leftover planetesimals that never accreted into planets.


Question: How do we know how old the Earth is?

Choices:
- From the layering of materials within the Earth.
- From fossils of ancient life.
- From the cratering history of Earth’s surface.
- From radioactive dating of rocks and meteorites.


Question: Life on Earth originated from

Choices:
- We don't know for sure.
- aliens (panspermia).
- comets.
- the Earth's oceans.


Question: By locating the north celestial pole (NCP) in the sky how can you determine your latitude?

Choices:
- The azimuth of the NCP is the angular distance from the North Pole.
- The azimuth of the NCP is the same as your latitude.
- The altitude of the NCP is the same as your latitude.
- The altitude of the NCP is your angular distance from the North Pole.


Question: How does the greenhouse effect work?

Choices:
- Ozone transmits visible light allowing it to heat the surface but then absorbs most of the infrared heat trapping the heat near the surface.
- Greenhouse gases transmit visible light allowing it to heat the surface but then absorb infrared light from Earth trapping the heat near the surface.
- Greenhouse gases absorb infrared light from the Sun which then heats the atmosphere and the surface.
- Greenhouse gases absorb X-rays and ultraviolet light from the Sun which then heat the atmosphere and the surface.


Question: Why is Saturn almost as big as Jupiter despite its smaller mass?

Choices:
- Jupiter's greater mass compresses it more thus increasing its density.
- Saturn has a larger proportion of hydrogen and helium than Jupiter and is therefore less dense.
- Saturn is further from the Sun thus cooler and therefore less compact.
- Saturn's rings make the planet look bigger.


Question: Calculate the ratio of the solar radiation flux on Mercury's surface for perihelion (0.304 AU) versus aphelion (0.456 AU).

Choices:
- 4:1
- 1:2
- 6:5
- 9:4


Question: The terrestrial planet cores contain mostly metal because

Choices:
- the entire planets are made mostly of metal.
- radioactivity created metals in the core from the decay of uranium.
- metals condensed first in the solar nebula and the rocks then accreted around them.
- metals differentiated to the center during a time when the interiors were molten throughout.


Question: Which of the following countries has sent landers to Venus?

Choices:
- The U.S.S.R.
- The U.S.
- France
- A and B


Question: Which of the following is/are NOT caused by orbital resonance?

Choices:
- 2:3 periodic ratio of Neptune:Pluto
- Kirkwood Gaps.
- Gaps in Saturn's rings.
- Breaking of small Jovian moons to form ring materials.


Question: Why is it thought that the climate on Mars changed when the planet lost its strong magnetic field?

Choices:
- without a strong magnetic field the ozone layer was destroyed by the solar wind which stopped the greenhouse effect and cooled Mars down.
- without a strong magnetic field which enhances the greenhouse effect Mars cooled down.
- without a strong magnetic field the solar wind stripped away most of the atmosphere significantly reducing the greenhouse effect and cooling Mars down
- without a strong magnetic field the planet recieves fewer charged particles from the solar wind and therefore is not heated as much


Question: Which of the following moons is NOT one of the Galilean moons?

Choices:
- Ganymede
- Callisto
- Europa
- Dione


Question: Planet X orbits its sun once every 100 Earth days and rotates in the prograde direction around its axis with a sidereal day of 100 Earth days. How long is a solar day on Planet X?

Choices:
- About 10 earth days
- About 100 earth days
- About 200 earth days
- There is no solar day Planet X is tidally locked


Question: When traveling north from the United States into Canada you’ll see the North Star (Polaris) getting _________.

Choices:
- Brighter
- Dimmer
- Higher in the sky
- Lower in the sky


Question: When will the next major impact occur on Earth?

Choices:
- Hundreds of millennia in the future.
- Major impacts can no longer occur since the period of heavy bombardment is over.
- Hundreds of millennia after the last major impact.
- Could be any time. The probability of impact is the same next year as it is for any later year.


Question: What about asteroids makes them stand out in sky surveys searching for them?

Choices:
- Asteroids emit pulsed radiation
- Asteroids emit a lot of their own radiation
- They reflect enough of the sun's light to make them brighter than most background stars
- Asteroids have substantial motion relative to the background stars


Question: Why did the solar nebula heat up as it collapsed?

Choices:
- Collisions among planetesimals generated friction and heat.
- Radiation from other nearby stars that had formed earlier heated the nebula.
- The shock wave from a nearby supernova heated the gas.
- As the cloud shrank its gravitational potential energy was converted to kinetic energy and then into thermal energy.


Question: You observe the visible spectrum of a star viewed through a cloud of cool hydrogen gas.

Choices:
- You see only the star’s blackbody spectrum.
- You see the star’s blackbody spectrum with absorption lines due to hydrogen.
- You see only emission lines characteristic of hydrogen.
- You see only emission lines characteristic of the star’s composition.


Question: Which of the following most likely explains why Venus does not have a strong magnetic field?

Choices:
- Its rotation is too slow.
- It has too thick an atmosphere.
- It is too large.
- It does not have a metallic core.


Question: Which of the following characteristics would not necessarily suggest that a rock we found is a meteorite.

Choices:
- It has a fusion crust
- It contains solidified spherical droplets
- It is highly processed
- It has different elemental composition than earth


Question: Which is not a similarity between Saturn and Jupiter's atmospheres?

Choices:
- a composition dominated by hydrogen and helium
- the presence of belts zones and storms
- an equatorial wind speed of more than 900 miles per hour
- significant "shear" between bands of circulation at different latitudes


Question: Jupiter's orbital distance is roughly 5 AU. How many times brighter would the Sun have to be for Europa to receive the same solar flux that we currently receive on Earth (1380W/m2)?

Choices:
- 100 times brighter
- 25 times brighter
- 2 times brighter
- 50 times brighter


Question: The Pleiades is an open star cluster that plays a role in many ancient stories and is well-known for containing ... bright stars.

Choices:
- 5
- 7
- 9
- 12


Question: The nebular theory of the formation of the solar system successfully predicts all but one of the following. Which one does the theory not predict?

Choices:
- Planets orbit around the Sun in nearly circular orbits in a flattened disk.
- the equal number of terrestrial and jovian planets
- the craters on the Moon
- asteroids Kuiper-belt comets and the Oort cloud


Question: A sand bag has a mass of 5kg and weight 50N on Earth. What is the mass and weight of this sand bag on a planet with half the gravity compared to Earth?

Choices:
- Mass 5kg weight 100N
- Mass 5kg weight 50N
- Mass 5kg weight 25N
- Mass 10kg weight 100N


Question: Where is the crater from the impact that is believed to be responsible for the mass extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago?

Choices:
- Tunguska Siberia.
- Chicxulub Crater Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico.
- Quebec Canada.
- Meteor Crater in Arizona.


Question: In addition to the conditions required for any solar eclipse what must also be true in order for you to observe a total solar eclipse?

Choices:
- The Earth must lie completely within the Moon's penumbra.
- The Moon's penumbra must touch the area where you are located.
- The Earth must be near aphelion in its orbit of the Sun.
- The Moon's umbra must touch the area where you are located.


Question: What effect or effects would be most significant if the Moon's orbital plane were exactly the same as the ecliptic plane?

Choices:
- Solar eclipses would be much rarer.
- Solar eclipses would last much longer.
- Solar eclipses would be much more frequent.
- Solar eclipses would not last as long.


Question: What type of radiation causes a black hole to evaporate over time?

Choices:
- Schwarzschild radiation
- Planck radiation
- Kolmogorov radiation
- Hawking radiation


Question: Approximately how far away is the Andromeda Galaxy?

Choices:
- 1.7 million light years
- 2.1 million light years
- 2.5 million light years
- 3.2 million light years


Question: Which living organisms most resemble the common ancestor of all life according to genetic testing?

Choices:
- viruses
- bacteria such as E. coli
- organisms living deep in the oceans around seafloor volcanic vents and in hot springs
- plankton that use sunlight as an energy source through photosynthesis


Question: How did Eratosthenes estimate the size of the Earth in 240 B.C.?

Choices:
- By measuring the maximum altitude of the Sun in two cities at different latitudes at the same time on the same day.
- By measuring the size of Earth's shadow on the Moon during a lunar eclipse.
- By finding a place on Earth where the Sun passes directly overhead.
- By sending fleets of ships around the Earth.


Question: Our current best observations show that Pluto has

Choices:
- one medium sized satellite and two small satellites.
- no satellites.
- one large satellite and three small satellites.
- one large satellite.


Question: Pluto's extremely cold (~40 K) surface is composed of:

Choices:
- mainly water ice which always remains frozen
- nitrogen methane and carbon monoxide ices which sublimate into an atmosphere near perihelion
- nitrogen methane and carbon monoxide ices which always remain frozen
- roughly half ices and half rocky materials


Question: A Mars year is approximately how many Earth years long?

Choices:
- 1/2
- 1
- 2
- 4


Question: What is the correct numerical value and unit of the Boltzmann constant?

Choices:
- 1.38 × 10−21 m^3 · kg · s^−2 · K^−1
- 1.38 × 10−22 m^2 · kg · s^−3 · K^−1
- 1.38 × 10−23 m^2 · kg · s^−2 · K^−1
- 1.38 × 10−24 m^2 · kg · s^−2 · K^−2


Question: Which statement about an atom is not true:

Choices:
- The nucleus contains most of the atom’s mass but almost none of its volume.
- A neutral atom always has equal numbers of electrons and protons.
- A neutral atom always has equal numbers of neutrons and protons.
- The electrons can only orbit at particular energy levels.


Question: Earth has been gradually warming over the past few decades. Based on a great deal of evidence scientists conclude that this warming is caused by ________.

Choices:
- human activities that are increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere
- the fact that our politicians spout a lot of hot air
- the human release of chemicals called CFCs into the stratosphere
- the increase in forest fires during recent years


Question: How do scientists know that the majority of meteorites come from the asteroid belt?

Choices:
- The spectra of some meteorites are similar to the spectra of asteroids in the asteroid belt.
- The asteroid belt is the only possible source of meteorites therefore they must originate there.
- Collisions are common in the asteroid belt and we can track the fragments from their source asteroid to the Earth where they become meteorites.
- High levels of Iridum have been detected in both asteroids and meteorites therefore meteorites come from the asteroid belt.


Question: Which factor s most important in determining the history of volanism and tectonism on a planet?

Choices:
- size of the planet
- presence of an atmosphere
- distance from the sun
- rotation period


Question: The astronomical unit parsec (pc) plays a crucial role in astronomy. One parsec is equal to about 3.26 light-years. How is one parsec defined in astronomy?

Choices:
- Distance at which one astronomical unit measures one arcsecond from Earth.
- Orbital distance of the solar system around the center of the Milky Way in one year.
- Effective distance of the solar wind (i.e. the radius of the heliosphere).
- Historical distance to the brightest star Sirius.


Question: The term Schwarzschild radius usually describes properties of ...

Choices:
- red dwarfs.
- pulsars.
- black holes.
- galaxies.


Question: As the life of a star progresses heavy elements are produced. The elements form layers around the star in this order (starting from the outer layer):

Choices:
- H → He → Li → N → O → Si → Fe
- H → He → C → O → Ne → Si → Fe
- H → He → Li → O → Ne → Si → Fe
- H → He → C → N → O → Si → Fe


Question: If you lived on Venus what phases of the Earth would you see? (Assume your telescope can see through Venus’s thick clouds…)

Choices:
- New first quarter full third quarter
- Waning crescent New Waxing crescent
- Waxing gibbous Full Waning gibbous
- New only


Question: Moons cause/contribute to which of the following?

Choices:
- stability of particles within rings.
- gravitational effects at ring edges as the moons pass by.
- gaps between rings.
- Moons contribute to all of the above.


Question: Mars has an atmospheric pressure of 600 pascals. If the acceleration due to gravity on Mars is (roughly) 4 m/s2 and the surface area of Mars is about 145000000 square km what is the approximate mass of the martian atmosphere?

Choices:
- 2.2x1011 kg
- 2.2x1014kg
- 2.2x1020kg
- 2.2x1016 kg


Question: Why is the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit currently tilted towards the north?

Choices:
- Because it’s climbing up a big hill.
- Because it’s in the southern hemisphere where it is winter now.
- Because it’s in the northern hemisphere where it is winter now.
- Because one of its wheels broke.


Question: Mars has an atmosphere that is almost entirely carbon dioxide.Why isn't there a strong greenhouse effect keeping the planet warm?

Choices:
- the atmosphere on Mars is too thin to trap a significant amount of heat
- There actually is a strong greenhouse effect and Mars would be 35oC colder than it is now without it.
- Mars does not have enough internal heat to drive the greenhouse effect
- the greenhouse effect requires an ozone layer which Mars does not have


Question: Which of the following was not cited as evidence for life in the martian meteorite ALH84001?

Choices:
- Complex organic molecules specifically PAHs
- Magnetite grains similar to those formed by bacteria on Earth
- Carbonate minerals indicating a thicker warmer Martian atmosphere
- Amino acids with a preferred orientation or "chirality"


Question: Kirkwood gaps are observed in the main asteroid belt including at the position(s) where:

Choices:
- asteroids would orbit with a period half that of Jupiter
- asteroids would orbit with a period twice that of Jupiter
- asteroids would orbit with a period twice that of Mars
- A and B


Question: The belts and zones of Jupiter are

Choices:
- names for the layers of gaseous and metallic hydrogen deep within the planet.
- alternating bands of rising and falling air at different latitudes.
- alternating regions of charged particles in Jupiter's magnetic field.
- regions of the plasma torus created by ions from Io's volcanoes


Question: The two moons of Mars are called ...

Choices:
- Tritos and Desmos
- Tritos and Deimos
- Phobos and Tritos
- Phobos and Deimos


Question: The visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum is between ...

Choices:
- 240 to 680 nm.
- 360 to 620 nm.
- 380 to 740 nm.
- 420 to 810 nm.


Question: What is true about the rotation of a solid disk?

Choices:
- The velocity is the same on every point on the disk
- The part closer to the axis has a longer period
- The period of rotation is the same on every point on the disk
- The part closer to the axis has a shorter period


Question: The constellation ... is a bright W-shaped constellation in the northern sky.

Choices:
- Centaurus
- Cygnus
- Cassiopeia
- Cepheus


Question: The so-called “bigfoot” on Mars was actually a rock that was about 5 cm tall. It had an angular size of about 0.5 degrees (~30 pixels). How far away was this rock from the rover?

Choices:
- About 6 meters
- About 6 feet
- About 10 meters
- About 10 feet


Question: Which is not an essential requirement for life as we know it?

Choices:
- The ability to breathe oxygen
- The ability to make energy from sunlight or to eat things that do
- A source of organic molecules
- A and B


Question: Suppose you live on the Moon. How long is a day (i.e. from sunrise to sunrise)?

Choices:
- about 18 years
- 24 hours
- 29 Earth days
- a year


Question: The famous Drake equation attempts to answer the following question:

Choices:
- Will the Sun become a black hole?
- Is the universe infinitely large?
- How old is the visible universe?
- Are we alone in the universe?


Question: 20000 years from now ...

Choices:
- The Moon will be closer to the Earth and the Earth’s day will be longer.
- The Moon will be closer to the Earth and the Earth’s day will be shorter.
- The Moon will be further from the Earth and the Earth’s day will be longer.
- The Moon will be further from the Earth and the Earth’s day will be shorter.


Question: What element is most common among the Jovian Planets?

Choices:
- Hydrogen
- Helium
- Carbon
- Oxygen


Question: Imagine that the Earth was instantly moved to an orbit three times further away from the Sun. How much longer would a year be?

Choices:
- exactly 3 times longer
- about 5.2 times longer
- Not enough information. It will depend on the inclination of the new orbit
- The length of the year wouldn't change because the Earth's mass stays the same.


Question: What would weigh the most on the moon?

Choices:
- A kilogram of feathers
- Five pounds of bricks as measured on Earth
- Five kilograms of feathers
- A kilogram of bricks


Question: Why can't we see the Sun's corona except during total solar eclipses?

Choices:
- The corona is made up mostly of charged particles which aren't luminous.
- It's much too cool to emit visible light
- We can't see magnetic fields
- It's too diffuse


Question: How do we think the "hot Jupiters" around other stars were formed?

Choices:
- They where formed when their stars flung material out into the system in a process similar to planetary fission.
- They formed as gas giants beyond the frost line and then migrated inwards.
- They formed as dense rocky planets close to the star in the same orbits that they are seen today.
- They formed as gas giants close to the star in the same orbits that they are seen today.


Question: The resolution of a telescope is a measure of its:

Choices:
- Ability to magnify distant objects
- Ability to measure the angular separation of objects
- Ability to measure the distance between objects
- Light-collecting efficiency


Question: The axis of the Earth is tilted at an angle of approximately ... relative to the orbital plane around the Sun.

Choices:
- 20.3 degrees
- 21.4 degrees
- 22.7 degrees
- 23.5 degrees


Question: Why do we see essentially the same face of the Moon at all times?

Choices:
- because the Moon has a nearly circular orbit around the Earth
- because the Moon does not rotate
- because the other face points toward us only at new moon when we can't see the Moon
- because the Moon's rotational and orbital periods are equal


Question: The second cosmic velocity (or escape velocity) is the speed required by an object to escape the gravitational field of a celestial body with mass M and radius R. Which formula correctly calculates this velocity? (G: gravitational constant)

Choices:
- v = sqrt(GM/R)
- v = 2sqrt(GM/R)
- v = sqrt(2GM/R)
- v = sqrt(GM/2R)


Question: Why are there no impact craters on the surface of Io?

Choices:
- Io did have impact craters but they have all been buried in lava flows.
- It is too small to have been hit during the Late Heavy Bombardment
- Jupiter's strong gravity attracted the planetesimals more strongly than Io and thus none landed on its surface.
- Any craters that existed have been eroded through the strong winds on Io's surface.


Question: The star Betelgeuse is one of the brightest stars in the night sky with remarkable red color. In which constellation is Betelgeuse located?

Choices:
- Cassiopeia
- Cygnus
- Ursa Major
- Orion


Question: What is the source of the material that causes meteor showers?

Choices:
- Asteroid impacts elsewhere in the solar system throw sand-sized particles into space and occasionally the Earth passes through a cloud of these particles which burn up in our atmosphere and cause a meteor shower.
- Near-Earth asteroids gradually disintegrate and spread out along their orbital paths. When the Earth passes through the orbit of an asteroid we are bombarded by sand-sized particles that cause a meteor shower.
- Near-Earth asteroids disintegrate as they enter Earth's atmosphere creating hundreds of bright meteors that appear to radiate from a single location in the sky.
- The nuclei of comets gradually disintegrate and spread out along their orbital paths. When the Earth passes through the orbit of an comet we are bombarded by sand-sized particles that cause a meteor shower.


Question: How does the greenhouse effect work?

Choices:
- Greenhouse gases absorb infrared light from the Sun which then heats the atmosphere and the surface.
- Ozone transmits visible light allowing it to heat the surface but then absorbs most of the infrared heat trapping the heat near the surface.
- Greenhouse gases transmit visible light allowing it to heat the surface but then absorb infrared light from Earth trapping the heat near the surface.
- The higher pressure of the thick atmosphere at lower altitudes traps heat in more effectively.


Question: Which of the following methods has led to the most discoveries of massive planets orbiting near their parent stars?

Choices:
- detecting the gravitational effect of an orbiting planet by looking for the Doppler shifts in the star's spectrum
- detecting the shift of the star's position against the sky due to the planet's gravitational pull
- detecting a planet ejected from a binary star system
- detecting the starlight reflected off the planet


Question: The distance between the Earth and the star Altair is one million times greater than the distance between the Earth and the Sun. How far is Altair from the Earth?

Choices:
- 9.3 x 1013 meters
- 9.3 x 1010 meters
- 1.5 x 1014 meters
- 1.5 x 1017 meters


Question: Why did Ptolemy have the planets orbiting Earth on ‘circles upon circles’ in his model of the universe?

Choices:
- To explain why more distant planets take longer to make a circuit through the constellations of the zodiac.
- To explain the fact that planets sometimes appear to move westward rather than eastward relative to the stars in our sky.
- To explain why the Greeks were unable to detect stellar paralax.
- To properly account for the varying distances of the planets from Earth.


Question: Sunspots are black regions that temporarily appear on the Sun. Their number highly increases every ... years. This period is also called the solar cycle.

Choices:
- 9
- 11
- 13
- 15


Question: Which planet(s) in the solar system has/have active plate tectonics?

Choices:
- Mars
- Venus
- Earth
- Mars and Earth


Question: The sky is blue because

Choices:
- the Sun mainly emits blue light.
- the atmosphere absorbs mostly blue light.
- molecules scatter red light more effectively than blue light.
- molecules scatter blue light more effectively than red light.


Question: What are the conditions necessary for a terrestrial planet to have a strong magnetic field?

Choices:
- fast rotation only
- a rocky mantle only
- a molten metallic core only
- both a molten metallic core and reasonably fast rotation


Question: Where are the Trojan asteroids located?

Choices:
- in the center of the asteroid belt
- on orbits that cross Earth's orbit
- surrounding Jupiter
- along Jupiter's orbit 60° ahead of and behind Jupiter


Question: Which of the following lists the ingredients of the solar nebula from highest to lowest percentage of mass in the nebula?

Choices:
- hydrogen compounds (H2O CH4 NH3) light gases (H He) metals rocks
- hydrogen compounds (H2O CH4 NH3) light gases (H He) rocks metals
- light gases (H He) hydrogen compounds (H2O CH4 NH3) metals rocks
- light gases (H He) hydrogen compounds (H2O CH4 NH3) rocks metals


Question: When was the telescope invented by Galileo?

Choices:
- 1409
- 1509
- 1609
- 1709


Question: Mars has an atmosphere that is almost entirely carbon dioxide.Why isn't there a strong greenhouse effect keeping the planet warm?

Choices:
- Mars does not have enough internal heat to drive the greenhouse effect
- Mars is too far from the sun for the greenhouse effect to work
- the greenhouse effect requires an ozone layer which Mars does not have
- the atmosphere on Mars is too thin to trap a significant amount of heat


Question: You've made a scientific theory that there is a force between all objects. This forcce has both a dark and light side. When will your theory be proven correct?

Choices:
- When you and many other Jedi have tested the hypothesis
- Jean-Luc Skywalker drops Yoda during the day and he falls to the ground proving your theory.
- You can never prove your theory to be correct only "yet to be proven wrong."
- After you've repeated your experiment many times


Question: Why do Uranus and Neptune have blue methane clouds but Jupiter and Saturn do not?

Choices:
- Methane does not condense into ice in the warmer atmospheric temperatures of Jupiter and Saturn.
- Methane did not exist in the solar nebula at the radii of Jupiter and Saturn when the planets formed.
- The relatively slow rotation of Uranus and Neptune allows methane to migrate to higher levels in the atmosphere and condense into clouds.
- Methane reacts with the abundant ammonia clouds in Jupiter and Saturn and is removed from the atmosphere.


Question: All of the following have been cited as evidence for the Giant Impact Hypothesis except:

Choices:
- The relative size of the Moon to the size of Earth is large compared to most planets and their moon.
- Most rocks on the Moon’s surface are older than those on the Earth’s surface.
- The Moon has a much smaller iron core than the Earth even considering its size.
- The Moon was once entirely molten.


Question: Why do scientists think Mars was once warmer and wetter?

Choices:
- Mars shows evidence of significant volcanism which implies that the climate was once warmer and therefore wetter
- early observations showed what appeared to be changing vegetation patterns and canals indicating the presence of water
- there are many geologic features on Mars that are difficult to explain unless liquid water was once stable at the surface
- all planets tend to begin with warm wet climates and gradually become cold and dry with smaller planets cooling faster than larger planets


Question: How do astronomers think Jupiter generates its internal heat?

Choices:
- nuclear fusion in the core
- by contracting changing gravitational potential energy into thermal energy
- internal friction due to its high rotation rate
- chemical processes


Question: Which one of these constellations is not located along the Milky Way in the sky?

Choices:
- Perseus
- Cygnus
- Scorpius
- Leo


Question: From shortest to longest wavelength which of the following correctly orders the different categories of electromagnetic radiation?

Choices:
- infrared visible light ultraviolet X rays gamma rays radio
- radio infrared visible light ultraviolet X rays gamma rays
- gamma rays X rays visible light ultraviolet infrared radio
- gamma rays X rays ultraviolet visible light infrared radio


Question: Approximately how long does it take Pluto to orbit the Sun once?

Choices:
- 150 years
- 200 years
- 250 years
- 300 years


Question: Mars might be a place for future human explorations. However humans can not breathe on the surface of Mars because the atmosphere consists mostly of ...

Choices:
- Nitrogen
- Argon
- Methane
- CO2


Question: Which of the jovian planets have rings?

Choices:
- Neptune
- Uranus
- Saturn
- all of the above


Question: Besides large astronomical objects astrophysicists are also interested in small particles from space. Which one of these particles has the weakest interactions with other particles?

Choices:
- µ Muons
- Antiparticles
- ν Neutrinos
- π Pions


Question: Approximately how old is the surface of Venus?

Choices:
- 750 million years.
- 2 billion years.
- 3 billion years.
- 4.5 billion years.


Question: Why do jovian planets bulge around the equator that is have a "squashed" appearance?

Choices:
- Their large systems of moons and rings gravitationally attract the mass around the equator more.
- They are much more massive than the terrestrial planets.
- Their rapid rotation flings the mass near the equator outward.
- Their internal heat sources exert a pressure against the sides of the planets.


Question: How do astronomers think Jupiter generates its internal heat?

Choices:
- through exothermic chemical reactions converting chemical potential energy into thermal energy
- nuclear fusion
- by contracting changing gravitational potential energy into thermal energy
- internal friction due to its rapid rotation rate and differential rotation


Question: What defines the habitable zone around a star?

Choices:
- the region around a star where liquid water can potentially exist on planetary surfaces
- the region around a star where humans can survive
- the region around a star where the ultraviolet radiation does not destroy organisms on a planetary surface
- the region around a star where life exists


Question: Why are Cepheid stars relevant for astronomers?

Choices:
- To measure interstellar mass.
- To measure galactic distances.
- To measure galactic energy-density.
- To measure interstellar density.


Question: What is the so-called bolometric luminosity in astronomy?

Choices:
- The luminosity integrated over vertically polarized wavelengths.
- The luminosity integrated over horizontally wavelengths.
- The luminosity integrated over visible wavelengths.
- The luminosity integrated over all wavelengths.


Question: Radio telescopes are crucial for astronomical observations. Which one of these well-known radio telescopes has the largest parabolic antenna?

Choices:
- Green Bank Telescope
- Arecibo Telescope
- Yevpatoria RT-70 Telescope
- Effelsberg Telescope


Question: Find the best approximation for the surface temperature of the Sun:

Choices:
- 6000 K
- 7000 K
- 9000 K
- 13000 K


Question: Previous IAAC rounds featured Proxima/Alpha Centauri as closes star(system) to the Earth. Which one is the second closest star(system)?

Choices:
- Wolf 359
- Sirius
- 61 Cygni
- Barnard’s Star


Question: How are planetary rings made?

Choices:
- From the dismantling of small moons by impacts
- From fragments of planets ejected by impacts
- From dust grains that escape from passing comets
- From accretion within the solar nebula at the same time the planets formed


Question: The lunar maria are:

Choices:
- ancient heavily cratered highlands
- dark lavas inside volcanic calderas
- dark lavas filling older impact basins
- the bright regions on the Moon


Question: One astronomical unit (AU) is equal to approximately ...

Choices:
- 130 million km
- 150 million km
- 170 million km
- 190 million km


Question: The Barkhausen criterion for an oscillator

Choices:
- Loop gain should be unity
- Loop gain should be less than unity
- The phase of a feedback signal with respect to input should be 0° or 360°
- Both A and C


Question: Potentiometer method of DC voltage measurement is more accurate than direct measurement using a voltmeter because

Choices:
- It loads the circuit moderately.
- It loads the circuit to maximum extent.
- It uses centre zero galvanometer instead of voltmeter.
- It does not load the circuit at all.


Question: Which of these sets of logic gates are designated as universal gates?

Choices:
- NOR, NAND.
- XOR, NOR, NAND.
- OR, NOT, AND.
- NOR, NAND, XNOR.


Question: A single phase one pulse controlled circuit has a resistance R and counter emf E load 400 sin(314 t) as the source voltage. For a load counter emf of 200 V, the range of firing angle control is

Choices:
- 30° to 150°.
- 30° to 180°.
- 60° to 120°.
- 60° to 180°.


Question: A box which tells the effect of inputs on control sub system is known as

Choices:
- Data Box.
- Logical box.
- Decision box.
- State box.


Question: Two infinite parallel metal plates are charged with equal surface charge density of the same polarity. The electric field in the gap between the plates is

Choices:
- same as that produced by one plate.
- double the field produced by one plate.
- dependent on coordinates of field points.
- zero.


Question: The resistance in the circuit of the moving coil of a dynamometer wattmeter should be

Choices:
- Low.
- Very low.
- High.
- Almost zero.


Question: The following are the necessary requirements of an oscillator

Choices:
- Amplitude stability
- Frequency stability
- Power stability
- Both A and B


Question: The normal voltage used in directional heating is

Choices:
- 1.5 KV.
- 15 KV.
- 33 KV.
- 66 KV.


Question: LC oscillators are used for produce a waveform with frequency ranging from

Choices:
- 1MHz to 500 MHz
- 100 KHz to 500 MHz
- 1 KHz to 1 MHz
- 1MHz to 100 GHz


Question: A working diode must have

Choices:
- High resistance when forward or reverse biased
- Low resistance when forward biased, while high resistance when reverse bias
- High resistance when forward biased, while low resistance when reverse bias
- Low resistance when forward or reverse biased


Question: What is the name of the fluorescent material that gives red colour fluorescence?

Choices:
- Zinc silicate.
- Calcium silicate.
- Zinc sulphide.
- Magnesium silicate.


Question: How many bits are required to store one BCD digit ?

Choices:
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4


Question: Commutator in DC generator is used for

Choices:
- collecting of current
- reduce losses
- increase efficiency
- convert AC armature current in to DC


Question: 1 F is theoretically equal to

Choices:
- 1 ohm of resistance
- ratio of 1 V to 1 C
- ratio of 1 C to 1 V
- none of these


Question: How many entries will be in the truth table of a 3 input NAND gate ?

Choices:
- 3
- 6
- 8
- 9


Question: In decimal number system what is MSD

Choices:
- First digit from left to right
- First digit from right to left
- Middle digit
- Mean of all digits


Question: In Digital Logic Designs, GAL is abbreviated as

Choices:
- General Advance Logic
- General Array Logic
- Generic Advance Logic
- Generic Array Logic


Question: Inintel 8085A microprocessor ALE signal is made high to

Choices:
- Enable the data bus to be used as low order address bus
- To latch data D0-D7 from data bus
- To disable data bus
- To achieve all the functions listed above