Heredity and evolution — Advanced

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Level 3: Advanced

Evaluate, justify, synthesise, propose — combine ideas, judge claims and methods (senior secondary style).

1. A social post claims: if you exercise, your muscles improve, so your children will be born stronger. From a genetics perspective, the best evaluation is:

   A)Mostly correct, because training reprograms sperm and egg DNA for offspringB)Mostly incorrect, because acquired muscle bulk is not inherited like alleles; offspring traits follow genes and population processesC)Misleading, because only maternal mitochondria matter for any offspring traitD)Correct if parents trained before puberty because germ cells freeze fitness scores

2. A news headline says one small study proves a complex trait such as intelligence is caused by a single gene. The strongest scientific critique is:

   A)Acceptable whenever the journal is prestigious and a p-value is below five percentB)Too cautious, because environment explains nearly all cognitive variationC)Complex traits are usually influenced by many genes and environment; one small study seldom proves single-gene causationD)Twin studies already identify single causal genes with certainty for headlines

3. To justify that two species share a common ancestor, a student should prefer:

   A)One striking similarity in one organ system with no other checksB)Multiple independent lines such as fossils, comparative anatomy, and sequences that fit one treeC)Overlapping fossil ranges on a map alone without morphology or moleculesD)Identical chromosome counts alone without sequence or developmental comparisons

4. Which proposal best synthesises natural selection and genetic variation?

   A)Environments shift which heritable variants reproduce most; allele frequencies can change across generationsB)Selection deletes all variation every generation, fixing one genotypeC)Allele frequencies change only by drift, with survival unrelated to traitsD)Selection rewrites a living individual’s DNA toward what the environment needs

5. Evaluate the claim: if two species look alike, they must share a recent common ancestor.

   A)Always true, because visible similarity guarantees a recent shared ancestorB)Not necessarily, because similar forms can evolve independently via convergenceC)False, because shared morphology never informs phylogenyD)True only for marine species and false for all land vertebrates

6. Justify caution when inferring causation from a correlation between a gene variant and a disease:

   A)Large samples make correlation equivalent to direct causationB)Genetic studies never use control groups or account for ancestryC)Linkage, population structure, shared environment, and chance can correlate variants without simple causationD)A higher p-value proves causation while a lower p-value disproves it

7. A population’s allele frequencies change over generations with no differential survival or reproduction. Which process is most emphasised?

   A)Directional natural selection on clear fitness differencesB)Artificial selection by breeders choosing traits each generationC)Predictable adaptation to a new predator via optimal genotypesD)Genetic drift from random sampling of parents and gametes, strongest when the population is small

8. Synthesise why genetic bottlenecks can threaten conservation of small populations:

   A)Alleles can be lost by sampling chance; inbreeding and drift then raise extinction riskB)Bottlenecks reliably raise heterozygosity within a few generationsC)They alter only plant mitochondrial genomes while nuclear DNA stays fixedD)They purge every deleterious allele automatically with no fitness cost

9. Critique teaching natural selection as survival of the strongest individual only:

   A)Accurate, because only the largest individual contributes offspring each generationB)Too narrow, because fitness is differential reproduction, not brute strength alone; timing and cooperation matterC)False, because selection never operates on individual phenotypesD)Correct if strongest is defined as fastest runner in every species

10. Why might polygenic traits complicate simple Mendelian pedigree predictions?

    A)They always show a clean three-to-one phenotypic split in every familyB)They are governed by one locus with no environmental modulationC)Many loci plus environment shape the phenotype, so simple dominant or recessive ratios often break downD)Polygenic traits are not inherited across generations at all

11. Evaluate the idea that giraffes stretched their necks and passed longer necks to offspring as acquired traits.

    A)Matches modern genetics, because use and disuse rewrites germline DNA for any traitB)Explains antibiotic resistance fully without mutation or selectionC)A Lamarckian story; heritable variation and selection better explain neck length than inherited stretching effectsD)Proven because muscle DNA carries training scars that gametes copy unchanged

12. Critique the statement: if two DNA sequences are ninety-nine percent identical, the organisms must be the same species.

    A)Always true, because percent identity alone resolves species in every caseB)Species judgments weigh reproduction, ecology, and morphology; sequences help but are not sufficient aloneC)False, because DNA never informs taxonomy or relatednessD)True for all prokaryotes and false for all eukaryotes

13. Synthesise horizontal gene transfer with antibiotic resistance in bacteria:

    A)Horizontal gene transfer is negligible in natural bacterial populationsB)Resistance appears only as brand-new mutations inside each treated patientC)Plasmids and conjugation cannot move resistance genes between cellsD)Resistance alleles can move across lineages via HGT, speeding spread beyond parent-to-offspring inheritance

14. Evaluate a headline that a single genetic marker explains most of human height variation in a population.

    A)Fully adequate, because one marker can account for the bulk of trait varianceB)Height is not heritable in families or twin studiesC)Height is highly polygenic; one marker typically explains only a small fraction of population varianceD)Population studies capture only environmental exposures, not DNA variation

15. Propose why founder effects can produce high frequencies of some recessive alleles in isolated communities:

    A)Drift is irrelevant whenever a new population is founded from migrantsB)A tiny founding group can by chance carry allele frequencies unlike the source metapopulationC)Selection immediately removes every recessive allele when a population is isolatedD)Mutation does not occur on islands or in closed communities

16. Critique the claim that evolution is only a theory so it is as uncertain as a casual guess.

    A)In science, theory names a broad, tested explanatory framework stronger than everyday guessworkB)Scientific theories are never tested or revised after publicationC)Informal guesses and scientific theories share identical epistemic statusD)Evolutionary biology rests on no independent evidence from fossils or molecules

17. Justify using fossil ages and molecular comparisons together when scientists discuss divergence times:

    A)Only one evidence type may inform estimates of when lineages splitB)Molecular comparisons need no fossil or geological calibration at allC)Body fossils of any age always preserve readable ancient DNA routinelyD)Fossils anchor ages while molecular data estimate branch lengths; combining them tests assumptions on both sides

18. Synthesise reproductive isolation with speciation over time:

    A)Reproductive barriers never arise gradually in natural populationsB)A single nucleotide change always creates a new species instantlyC)Gene-flow barriers can stack through time, letting populations diverge genetically and ecologicallyD)Speciation needs identical selective environments everywhere on Earth

19. Evaluate teaching natural selection as nature wants species to improve toward perfection.

    A)Accurate, because ecosystems have intended endpoints for every lineageB)Misleading, because selection is not goal-directed; fitness is differential reproduction in present conditionsC)Correct for predators because hunting guarantees progressive perfectionD)Evolution universally increases complexity and advancement in all lineages

20. A study reports a genetic marker associated with a trait in one regional group. Why should students treat it cautiously before generalising?

    A)Population structure and environment can mimic associations; wider replication checks those pitfallsB)Human SNPs are invariant, so associations cannot appear in any cohortC)One labelled group is automatically representative of all humans without further workD)A significant result in one cohort proves mechanism and causation outright

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