Quiz - Restless Genes

What is the most likely meaning of the phrase “Cook and Tupaia closed the circle” at the end of the following passage:

Two centuries later a global network of geneticists analyzing DNA bread-crumb trails of modern human migration would prove Cook right: Tupaia’s ancestors had colonized the Pacific 2,300 years before. Their improbable migration across the Pacific continued a long eastward march that had begun in Africa 70,000 to 50,000 years earlier. Cook’s journey, meanwhile, continued a westward movement started by his own ancestors, who had left Africa around the same time Tupaia’s ancestors had. In meeting each other, Cook and Tupaia closed the circle, completing a journey their forebears had begun together, so many millennia before.

• They established a close friendship that was unlikely because they were from such different cultures.

• Studying the DNA of Cook and Tupaia proved to geneticists that they were related.

• Their ancestors left Africa at the same time and migrated to different places, but more migration led Cook and Tupaia to be in the same spot.

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The following passage mainly suggests that:

Why indeed? Pääbo and other scientists pondering this question are themselves explorers, walking new ground. They know that they might have to backtrack and regroup at any time. They know that any notion about why we explore might soon face revision as their young disciplines—anthropology, genetics, developmental neuropsychology—turn up new fundamentals. Yet for those trying to figure out what makes humans tick, our urge to explore is irresistible terrain. What gives rise to this “madness” to explore? What drove us out from Africa and on to the moon and beyond?

• why humans explore is unanswerable

• scientists are like explorers

• exploration is connected to genes

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Which of the following best exemplifies the idea of genes “driving their own selection”?

• Genes for curly hair in migrating Europeans causing curly hair to be common in North American settlers

• Quebec pioneer families having fewer children than city-dwellers because children were more likely to die of starvation on the frontier

• Migrating cane toads with long legs getting in front of toads with shorter legs, allowing them to mate with other long-legged toads to have long-legged offspring

Which inference is best supported by the story about Ernest Shackleton?

• He did not believe that exploration could be deadly.

• He survived because of his manual skill and his imagination combined.

• He was insane and did absurd things.

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Which inference about the writer’s attitude toward human exploration is best supported by the essay?

• He thinks it is admirable

• He thinks it is harmful.

• He thinks it is unnecessary.

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Which sentence best supports the fact that the writer feels human exploration is admirable

• “What gives rise to this “madness” to explore?”

• “Some visionaries even talk of sending a spacecraft to the nearest star.”

• “Not all of us ache to ride in a rocket or sail the infinite sea.”

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Which idea about genes and exploration is best supported by the author’s argument?

• Genes are far less important than environment in driving humans to go somewhere new.

• Scientists are searching for the single gene that causes human exploration.

• 1. The gene variant DRD4-7R may be linked to humans’ urge to explore.

  
  

Which sentence best supports that the gene variant DRD4-7R may be linked to humans’ urge to explore

• “You just can’t reduce something as complex as human exploration to a single gene.”

• “In humans the result is legs and hips that let us walk long distances; clever, clever hands; and an even cleverer brain . . .”

• “The first large genetic study . . . found 7R more common in present-day migratory cultures than in settled ones.”

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Periods of a thousand years

• millennia

• prospect

• migration

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An area of study or skill

• migration

• prospect

• discipline

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