History of Life on Earth / Origin of Life Set of 3 Quizzes

These quizzes were written to accompany my notes and PowerPoint on this same topic. You can view the “History of Life on Earth PowerPoint” by clicking this link.

This product contains 3 quizzes that can be used at various stages as the unit is being taught. I always break up the content into manageable amounts of study material and give my students several small quizzes on this material prior to the unit test. As a result, I now have three different quizzes that I use at different points of instruction. Some years, I might use all three of these quizzes, and other years I might only use one or two of them. I hope that you will find these helpful in your own instruction of this topic.

Suitable for biology students in grades 9-12.

All answers included.

Here is what each quiz will cover:

Quiz #1:
1. Early Ideas About the Origin of Life: Biogenesis and spontaneous generation.
2. The experiments of Redi, Spallanzani, and Louis Pasteur.
3. This quiz consists entirely of short answer questions. There are 15 questions.
4. Students are given a picture of Redi’s classic experiment and asked to explain his control and experimental groups.
5. Questions also cover the experiments carried out by Spallanzani, and the classic experiment of Louis Pasteur that disproved spontaneous generation for all time.

Quiz #2:
1. Early Ideas About the Origin of Life: Biogenesis, spontaneous generation, abiogenesis, the experiments of Redi, Spallanzani, and Louis Pasteur.
2. Earth’s History: The age of the Earth, radioactive dating, isotopes, radioactive isotopes, carbon-14 dating, the limits of carbon-14 dating, the dating of older rocks and fossils, the chemical and physical processes that might have occurred that led to the first life forms.
3. The First Organic Compounds on Earth: The Oparin hypothesis, the experimental evidence of Miller and Urey, examination of new evidence about the atmosphere of early Earth.
4. From Molecules to Cell-Like Structures: Microspheres, coacervates, the experiments of Sydney Fox, the life like properties of microspheres and coacervates.
5. The First Life Forms: Key processes of metabolism and replication, protobionts.
6. This quiz contains 27 fill in the blank questions and 4 short answer questions.

Quiz #3
1. The Origin of Heredity: RNA as the first genetic material, ribozyme, the ability to self-replicate, the role of natural selection.
2. The Fossil Record: The fossil record shows change over time, why the fossil record is incomplete, types of organisms that do and do not form fossils.
3. The First Single Celled Organisms: The anaerobic conditions on early Earth, first heterotrophic prokaryotes, rise of autotrophs, chemosynthesis, archaebacteria.
4. Photosynthesis and Aerobic Respiration: The production of organic compounds in photosynthesis, the release of oxygen into the atmosphere, the damaging nature of oxygen, the evolution of aerobic respiration, cyanobacteria, production of ozone.
5. The First Eukaryotes: Differences between prokaryotes and eukaryotes, the theory of endosymbiosis, evolution of mitochondria and chloroplasts, evidence for endosymbiosis.
6. The First Multicellular Eukaryotes: Arrival of protists, algae, fungi, plants and animals, the Cambrian explosion, first animal phyla, early animals are herbivores, appearance of predators.
7. The Colonization of Land: Solving the problem of reproduction without water and the problem of dehydration in an oxygen atmosphere, solutions to these problems, vascular tissue of plants, cuticle of plants, reproduction with pollen, the exoskeleton of arthropods, and the amniote egg.
8. Large Scale Process Have Affected Life on Earth: Continental Drift, Mass extinctions, Adaptive radiations.
9. This quiz contains 26 fill in the blank questions and 3 short answer questions.

You might also be interested in the following:

History of Life on Earth PowerPoint with Notes for Teacher and Student

History of Life on Earth Question and Answer Review PowerPoint

Lab: Making Coacervates

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