NATURAL SCIENCE 360 — “LEGACY OF LIFE”
Dr. Stuart S. Sumida
California
State University
San Bernardino;
Department of Biology
Exam Study Guides
First Midterm
Examples of Major Concepts for Study
- Age of the earth
- Evolution and its mechanisms
- Food acquisition strategies
- Culture of the Enlightenment and how it contributed to scientific
understanding
- Special adaptations of plants
- What is a synapomorphy? How do we
define (versus describe) groups?
- Comparison of plants versus fungi versus animals
- Scientific method
- What is science versus what is not.
- Continental drift
- Major plant groups and their ages
- Major fungal groups and their ages
- Oldest multicellular organisms
Possible “Essay” Question Topics:
·
Explain and
define the different types of food acquisition strategies described in class,
and give an example of each.
·
Explain, either as a list of components or with text/prose,
the process of Natural Selection as described by Charles Darwin.
·
What is
convergent evolution? Give at least two examples.
·
The earth it now
acknowledged to be extremely old. Describe how it came to be understood that
the earth was extremely old during the Age of the Enlightenment.
·
What is
Symbiosis? Describe at least one example.
Second Midterm
Examples of Major Concepts for Study
·
Water to Land
Transition: Examples of problems associated with it and solutions in
different groups.
·
Chordate Synapomorphies!!!
·
Defining feature
of vertebrates!!!
·
Caenogenesis
·
Importance of
Segmentation
·
Protostome/Deuterostome
differences
·
Insect stuff:
original function of wings; origin of insects; most primitive are wingless
·
Endoskeleton
versus Exoskeleton
Possible “Essay” Question Topics:
- Be able to draw a basic cross-section of a vertebrate.
- Explain NEOTONY and give examples.
- Defining Features for: Deuterostomia, Chordata, Vertebrata, Tetrapoda
Important Topics for the Final
Examples of Major Concepts for Study
- Defining Features for: Lissamphibia,
Amniota, Dinosauria, Aves (Birds), Mammalia, Primates, Homo sapiens (today)
- Closest extinct relatives of each of the above.
- Examples of Convergent Evolution
- Examples of Neotony
- Posture vs. number of feet on ground
- Components of human locomotion (today)
- Extinct vs. living relatives of groups.
- Functions of feathers
- Build your trees!
- Position of Synapsida in Vertebrate
evolutionary tree.
- Food acquisition strategy (you are what you eat – herbivore vs.
Carnivore features)
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Stuart Sumida’s Home Page.