Course Introduction
Human Origins Practice Exam
Human Origins is an interdisciplinary course that explores the biological and cultural evolution of Homo sapiens, tracing our lineage from early primates to the emergence of modern humans. Through the study of fossil records, genetics, archaeology, and comparative anatomy, students examine key milestones in human evolution, including bipedalism, tool use, language development, and the spread of humans across the globe. The course also addresses theories of human adaptation and the impact of environmental and social factors on our evolutionary path, providing a comprehensive understanding of what makes us uniquely human.
Recommended Textbook
How Humans Evolved 7th Edition by Robert Boyd
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Page 2
Chapter 1: Adaptation by Natural Selection
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Sample Questions
Q1) Using the rate of change that the Grants observed in the medium ground finch, and assuming a selection event only occurs once every century, how rapidly would you predict that a species of finch like the large ground finch could evolve?
A) It would take millions of years for only beak size to evolve.
B) The medium ground finch could evolve into the large ground finch in 20 years.
C) Natural selection could produce a new species of ground finch in a few thousand years.
D) Because selection generally pushes constantly in one direction, a new species of ground finch could evolve in a single century.
Answer: C
Q2) For natural selection to occur, variation must exist. This is true because without variation
A) there is no way for change to occur between generations.
B) the one trait that exists is always advantageous, and change is not necessary.
C) there is no competition among individuals.
D) traits are never inherited by offspring.
Answer: A
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Chapter 2: Genetics
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Q1) Which of the following is true of DNA transcription/translation?
A) A codon corresponds to an amino acid.
B) A DNA sequence codes for a protein.
C) A protein consists of a series of codons.
D) Both a and b are true.
Answer: D
Q2) Imagine two loci on one chromosome. At one locus the genotype is Aa, and at the other locus the genotype is Bb. After meiosis, what are all of the possible genotypes of the gametes?
A) AB and ab gametes
B) All AB gametes
C) AB, ab, Ab, and aB gametes
D) Ab and aB gametes
Answer: C
Q3) Which of the following sequences is accurate for transcription and translation?
A) DNA tRNA mRNA protein
B) DNA mRNA protein.
C) Protein tRNA DNA
D) Protein tRNA DNA.
Answer: B
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Chapter 3: The Modern Synthesis
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Sample Questions
Q1) Some male soapberry bugs adjust their mate-guarding behavior in response to the local environment. Males guard females more when
A) females are relatively abundant.
B) females are relatively scarce.
C) the sex ratio is skewed toward females.
D) the sex ratio is balanced.
Answer: B
Q2) For most continuously varying characters, offspring are intermediate between their parents because
A) of blending inheritance.
B) genetic transmission involves faithful copying of the genes themselves and their reassembly into different combinations in zygotes.
C) mutation is constantly introducing new alleles, some of which will produce new phenotypes.
D) natural selection reduces variation.
Answer: B
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Chapter 4: Speciation and Phylogeny
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Q1) Which of the following is NOT a reason that reproductive isolation occurs?
A) An increase in a population's size
B) Variation in a species' courtship behavior
C) Restriction in a population's habitat
D) Variation in individual's activity patterns
Q2) A hybrid zone
A) provides evidence for allopatric speciation.
B) sometimes contains individuals that are less fit than those outside of hybrid zones.
C) sometimes contains adaptive radiations.
D) provides evidence for the ecological species concept.
Q3) Allopatric speciation can involve
A) recolonization without reproductive isolation.
B) gene flow.
C) genetic drift.
D) sharing habitat.
Q4) Compare and contrast cladistic and evolutionary systematics. Illustrate your answer by discussing the phylogeny of apes and humans.
Q5) Explain the difference between ancestral and derived characters.
Q6) Give a hypothetical example of parapatric speciation.
Page 6
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Chapter 5: Primate Diversity and Ecology
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Sample Questions
Q1) One adaptation to nocturnality is A) color vision.
B) large eyes.
C) immobile ears.
D) large body size.
Q2) The social organization and behavior of a species are directly influenced by A) heritability of a trait. B) genetic mutation.
C) environmental factors.
D) metabolic rates.
Q3) Humans and nonhuman primates share a suite of traits, including grasping hands and binocular vision, so their last common ancestor must have also shared this suite of traits. These traits in humans and nonhuman primates is therefore an example of A) balancing selection.
B) analogy.
C) recombination.
D) homology.
Q4) Explain how reasoning from homology and reasoning from analogy can help us to understand our own species better.
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Chapter 6: Primate Mating Systems
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Q1) Male primates commit infanticide in one-male, multifemale groups because A) it enhances male attractiveness to females.
B) females without nursing infants resume sexual receptivity.
C) females do not want infants sired by a nonalpha male.
D) they want to limit the number of males in their group.
Q2) Female nonhuman primates often begin to reproduce before they are fully grown. Empirical evidence supports the idea that these young females
A) can achieve high fertility and low infant mortality equivalent to middle-age and older females.
B) will have shorter interbirth intervals than fully grown females.
C) will have lower fertility than middle-age females.
D) will not achieve full adult size in their lifetime.
Q3) How could infanticide be seen as a male reproductive strategy? Why is infanticide more prevalent in species that form one-male, multifemale groups than in multimale, multifemale groups? Is there evidence that this is an adaptive strategy? Explain your answer.
Q4) Explain why it is important that we study and understand reproductive strategies of animals, and primates specifically.
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Chapter 7: The Evolution of Cooperation
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Q1) By definition, altruistic behaviors
A) incur a cost to the recipient.
B) incur a cost to the actor.
C) result in a benefit to the actor.
D) are beneficial to the recipient and the actor.
Q2) Construct a hypothetical example to illustrate how a gene causing altruism in an individual could increase in frequency through kin selection.
Q3) What evidence exists for reciprocal altruism in primates? Why would reciprocal altruism be common for primates but not for other animals?
Q4) Which of the following describes maternal rank and matrilineages in macaque, vervet, and baboon groups?
A) Maternal rank is transferred to offspring, particularly daughters.
B) Maternal kin occupy dissimilar ranks in the dominance hierarchy.
C) Ranking within matrilineages is usually laterally transferred.
D) Female dominance relationships are unstable over time.
Q5) Compare altruism and mutualism in terms of the fitness effects on actors and recipients.
Q6) What is altruism? Why was it a puzzle for evolutionary biology before Hamilton?
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Chapter 8: Primate Life Histories and the Evolution of Intelligence
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Q1) The executive brain ratio is closely linked to A) home range size.
B) nocturnal activity patterns.
C) forms of tool use.
D) the amount of fruit in the diet.
Q2) Effective deception requires
A) ecological knowledge.
B) a theory of mind.
C) associative learning.
D) a large neocortex.
Q3) Examples of redirected aggression in vervet monkeys demonstrate that they understand
A) dominance rank.
B) theory of mind.
C) social intelligence.
D) third-party relationships.
Q4) List the four main lobes of the cerebrum and briefly describe what the cerebral cortex is and why anthropologists are interested in it.
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Q5) Explain why coalitional behavior may require sophisticated cognitive abilities.
Q6) Give two examples indicating that primates deliberately deceive conspecifics.
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Chapter 9: From Tree Shrew to Ape
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Q1) Why is continental drift important to our understanding of primate evolution?
A) It can facilitate speciation.
B) It can cause random changes in gene frequencies.
C) It produces adaptations.
D) It increases mutations.
Q2) What is Pangaea?
A) A single landmass that contained all present-day continents.
B) The view that all mammals evolved in Gaea.
C) The specific geographic location where all life originated.
D) Evidence of an ancient underwater biome.
Q3) Radiometric techniques provide researchers with the ability to A) search for extraterrestrials.
B) extract DNA from inside fossils.
C) determine the morphology of a fossil.
D) determine the age of a fossil.
Q4) The first primates that were similar to modern monkeys appeared A) at Fayum in Egypt.
B) during the Paleocene.
C) about 5 million years ago.
D) at the same time as the dinosaurs.
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Chapter 10: From Hominoid to Hominin
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Q1) The recent discovery of ________ in 2008 sparked controversy regarding its finders' claims that it is the most likely candidate of the ancestors of genus Homo.
A) Australopithecus africanus
B) Australopithecus afarensis
C) Australopithecus sediba
D) Australopithecus ramidus
Q2) Features showing that Australopithecus afarensis is a hominin include
A) a large brain.
B) lack of a tail.
C) bipedalism.
D) thin molar enamel.
Q3) Compared to the gracile australopiths, the robust australopiths
A) were twice the body size.
B) exhibit a number of derived features of the cranium and teeth.
C) were not appreciably different in any way.
D) have all come from East African sites.
Q4) What was the diet of the robust australopiths? What are the anatomical features associated with their diet?
Q5) Discuss three hypotheses concerning the evolution of bipedalism.
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Chapter 11: Oldowan Toolmakers and the Origin of Human
Life History
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Q1) Oldowan tools found in East Africa and dated to 2.5 mya could have been made by A) Australopithecus afarensis.
B) Proconsul africanus.
C) Homo sapiens.
D) Homo neanderthalensis.
Q2) In contemporary foraging societies,
A) there is a great deal of sexual dimorphism.
B) there is increased competition between males for females who are good at extractive foraging.
C) males make substantial investments in their offspring by sharing food.
D) females are solely responsible for the food needed to feed children.
Q3) Contemporary foragers rely more heavily on ________ than any other primate.
A) fruit
B) agricultural products
C) meat
D) domestic animals
Q4) Compare the sexual division of labor in hunting in contemporary foragers. What are the reasons for such a division of labor?
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Q5) What are the elements of Mode 1, or Oldowan, stone industries, and what do we know about their use?
Chapter 12: From Hominin to Homo
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Q1) Homo ergaster
A) may not have had spoken language.
B) could walk but not run.
C) was very lean.
D) was highly sexually dimorphic.
Q2) Homo ergaster possessed many derived features shared by modern humans, including
A) a taller skull.
B) larger teeth.
C) no chin.
D) small, gracile muscles.
Q3) During interglacial periods of the early Middle Pleistocene, A) the world was drier.
B) temperatures were cooler.
C) glaciers covered Europe and North America.
D) animals moved from Africa to Eurasia.
Q4) Homo heidelbergensis appeared between
A) 2 and 1 million years ago.
B) 1 million and 10,000 years ago.
C) 800,000 and 500,000 years ago.
D) 400,000 and 10,000 years ago.
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Chapter 13: Homo sapiens and the Evolution of Modern
Human Behavior
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Q1) What was the main difference between modern human and Neanderthal subsistence strategies?
A) Neanderthals hunted more dangerous game.
B) Humans hunted a greater variety of prey species.
C) Neanderthals obtained more of their diet from plants.
D) Humans lived in colder climates and therefore ate more cold-adapted species.
Q2) The fact that Upper Paleolithic people lived at higher population densities than Neanderthals is evidence of which of the following statements?
A) Upper Paleolithic people were able to obtain more food from their environment than Neanderthals.
B) Upper Paleolithic people lived in larger social groups than Neanderthals.
C) Upper Paleolithic people lived longer than Neanderthals.
D) Upper Paleolithic people ate better food than Neanderthals.
Q3) What are the two main theories about the origin of modern humans?
Q4) The oldest anatomically modern human fossils are found in A) caves in the Middle East.
B) Omo Kibish, in southern Ethiopia, Africa.
C) Southeast Asia.
D) Southern Australia.
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Chapter 14: Human Genetic Variation
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Q1) Although only a small fraction of protein-coding genes shows evidence of selection since the divergence of human and chimpanzee lineages, humans and chimpanzees are vastly different in their phenotypes. How can this be?
Q2) Most genetic variation exists
A) within local groups.
B) among local groups within races.
C) between races.
D) between local groups.
Q3) The rates of change in the human lineage for highly accelerated regions of the genome that have undergone negative selection imply that they have been shaped by A) genetic drift.
B) natural selection.
C) mutation.
D) sexual selection.
Q4) ________ tends to blur the effects of population expansions.
A) Mutation
B) Genetic drift
C) Gene flow
D) Founder effect
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Chapter 15: Evolution and Human Behavior
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Sample Questions
Q1) According to evolutionary psychologists, the environment of evolutionary adaptedness
A) is long gone.
B) has not yet arrived.
C) is here now.
D) never existed.
Q2) Kipsigis men may assess the reproductive potential of prospective brides by
A) counting the number of previous sexual partners of the woman.
B) calculating their age at menarche.
C) their weight.
D) their height.
Q3) The advantage of outbreeding over inbreeding, and why inbreeding is avoided in humans and other primates, is that
A) it reduces the risk of the expression of deleterious alleles.
B) it reduces the risk of heterozygosity.
C) it increases the likelihood of the expression of deleterious alleles.
D) it increases the likelihood of homozygosity.
Q4) Discuss the effect of arranged marriages between minors in Taiwanese societies and whether those unions are more or less successful than more modern-style unions.
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Chapter 16: Culture Cooperation and Human Uniqueness
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Q1) Cumulative cultural change is possible
A) with social facilitation only.
B) with observational learning only.
C) only when learning is mainly genetic
D) only in humans
Q2) Which of the following is evidence against the mismatch hypothesis?
A) Members of contemporary hunter-gatherer bands are not as closely related as thought, and unrelated individuals in most societies cooperate often.
B) People frequently move between bands, so cooperation of any kind is impossible.
C) Individuals cooperate only with family members.
D) Cooperation is simply rarely observed among most human groups.
Q3) The Yurok
A) built pyramids.
B) built snow houses that kept them warm during frigid winters.
C) made a living by raising and herding cattle.
D) constructed weirs to harvest salmon requiring the labor of hundreds of men from different villages.
Q4) How does culture differ between human and nonhuman primates? How is it similar?
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