Mendel's Pea Plants and the Foundations of Genetics

What do scientists use to predict the likelihood of inheriting specific traits or genetic diseases?

• Parental information and family history

• Blood type of parents

• Parental DNA tests only

• Weather patterns

Who discovered the principles of heredity through pea plant experiments?

• Isaac Newton

• Albert Einstein

• Charles Darwin

• Gregor Mendel

What term did Mendel use to describe the trait that appears in the offspring?

• Recessive

• Dominant

• Invisible

• Submissive

What did Mendel's experiments with pea plants help to establish?

• The theory of relativity

• The structure of DNA

• The principles of heredity

• The laws of motion

What are alleles?

• A scientific instrument

• A type of disease

• Variations of a gene

• Types of plants

What does a homozygous genotype mean?

• Alleles are mutated

• Both alleles are identical

• Both alleles are different

• One allele is missing

What tool is used to predict the distribution of alleles?

• Thermometer

• Punnett square

• Calculator

• Microscope

What combination of alleles results in a green pea according to Mendel's experiments?

• One recessive allele only

• One dominant and one recessive allele

• Two recessive alleles

• Two dominant alleles

What does phenotype refer to?

• A diagram used in genetics

• A type of genetic disease

• The physical appearance resulting from the genotype

• The genetic makeup of an organism

How have genetic studies advanced since Mendel's time?

• They haven't; we still use Mendel's methods

• Only through the use of Punnett squares

• Through the discovery of DNA

• Understanding complex inheritance patterns beyond simple dominant-recessive traits