Free Evolution MCQs with Answers

• A. gradual genetic change in populations over successive generations
• B. the growth of an individual from birth to adulthood
• C. the seasonal migration of animals
• D. the extinction of a single species

Explanation: Evolution acts on populations across generations, changing allele frequencies over time.

• A. Lamarck
• B. Alfred Russel Wallace
• C. Gregor Mendel
• D. Thomas Huxley

Explanation: Wallace reached the same conclusion while collecting in the Malay Archipelago, and his letter prompted the joint reading of both men's…

• A. palaeontology
• B. embryology
• C. biogeography
• D. taxonomy

Explanation: Biogeography explains why isolated landmasses evolve their own distinctive faunas, a pattern Darwin and Wallace both used as evidence.

• A. individual
• B. cell
• C. organelle
• D. population

Explanation: An individual's genes are fixed for life, so it cannot evolve; what changes is the genetic makeup of populations as generations pass.

• A. The horse
• B. The pigeon
• C. The frog
• D. The earthworm

Explanation: From the small multi toed Hyracotherium to the single hooved Equus, horse fossils record increasing size, fewer toes and taller teeth as…

• A. all species were created separately
• B. all life shares a common ancestor
• C. mutation is impossible
• D. DNA is chemically unstable

Explanation: A universal code is exactly what common descent predicts: one original system inherited by every branch of life.

• A. The fossil record
• B. Comparison of DNA sequences
• C. The growth of an individual from birth to adulthood
• D. The presence of vestigial organs

Explanation: Fossils, molecular comparisons and vestigial structures all reveal change across generations.

• A. are equally useful in every species
• B. appear only in fossils
• C. function better than they once did
• D. have lost most or all of their original function in the course of evolution

Explanation: The human appendix, wisdom teeth and ear muscles persist as reduced remnants of structures that served our ancestors.

• A. adaptation to different food sources
• B. random accidents with no cause
• C. differences in the age of the birds
• D. infection by different parasites

Explanation: Seed crackers, insect pickers and cactus feeders each carry a beak matched to their food, descendants of one ancestor that radiated into…

• A. All individuals being genetically identical
• B. Heritable variation among individuals
• C. The absence of competition
• D. Unlimited food supply

Explanation: Without heritable differences there is nothing for selection to choose between, so variation produced by mutation and recombination is the…

• A. The Origin of Species
• B. Principia Mathematica
• C. Philosophie Zoologique
• D. Zoonomia

Explanation: Philosophie Zoologique set out the first complete theory of evolution, fifty years before Darwin.

• A. sudden mutation
• B. natural selection
• C. hybridisation
• D. disuse over many generations

Explanation: By his law of use and disuse, an organ that stops being used wastes away and the loss is then inherited.

• A. August Weismann
• B. Charles Darwin
• C. Gregor Mendel
• D. Louis Pasteur

Explanation: Every generation was still born with a tail, proving that injuries acquired during life are not transmitted.

• A. are always harmful
• B. do not alter the genes in the gametes
• C. are dominant traits
• D. affect only the nervous system

Explanation: Only changes in the DNA of eggs or sperm can be inherited, and exercise reshapes muscle without touching the germ line.

• A. Darwin
• B. Wallace
• C. Lamarck
• D. Aristotle

Explanation: Although wrong in mechanism, Lamarck was the first to offer a coherent, published explanation of how species change.

• A. a trait inherited from both parents
• B. a mutation in the germ cells
• C. a sex linked trait
• D. a change produced during an individual's lifetime by use, disuse or the environment

Explanation: Acquired traits develop within one lifetime, such as a tan or a learned skill, and vanish with the individual unless written into the…

• A. the inner needs and desires of the organism
• B. random mutation
• C. genetic drift
• D. hybrid sterility

Explanation: Lamarck imagined that a new need creates a new habit, the habit uses or abandons an organ, and the change is then inherited.

• A. natural selection
• B. disuse of wings over many generations
• C. genetic engineering
• D. mutation only

Explanation: In Lamarck's scheme, ground living birds stopped flying, their wings weakened from disuse and the reduction was passed on.

• A. after Darwin's Origin of Species
• B. at exactly the same time as Darwin's
• C. about half a century before Darwin's
• D. in the twentieth century

Explanation: Philosophie Zoologique appeared in 1809 and the Origin of Species in 1859, so Lamarck preceded Darwin by fifty years.

• A. Endeavour
• B. Mayflower
• C. Santa Maria
• D. HMS Beagle

Explanation: The Beagle surveyed South American coasts from 1831 to 1836, giving Darwin fossils, finches and biogeography to think about for the next…