Science Assessment ~ Topics ~ Evolution and Natural Selection ~ Misconception ENM031

Individual organisms can deliberately develop new heritable traits because they need them for survival (Bishop & Anderson 1990; Passmore et al., 2002; Stern & Roseman, 2004).

Items that test for misconception ENM031 in this project (Original Project) and key idea (When inherited traits are favorable…)
Item ID Number	Item Description	How Often the Misconception was Chosen
EN023001	When a new predator is introduced into a population of lizards, the lizards with the traits that help them avoid the predator are more likely to survive and reproduce than the others.	47%
EN021002	When a change occurs in the environment, the individuals that have traits that are better suited for the changed environment would be more likely to survive and reproduce.	44%
EN034003	Some organisms survive and others die as the environment changes; this changes the proportion of organisms with certain traits in that population.	34%
EN026002	A population can differ from its ancestors because an environmental change can affect which inherited traits are most helpful and, therefore, which individuals are more likely to survive and reproduce.	33%
EN022002	If the type of seed available to a population of birds changes, the individual birds with the beak best equipped for eating the new type of seed are more likely to survive and reproduce than the others.	29%
EN030002	Bacteria become resistant to antibiotics when a few individual resistant bacteria survive and reproduce, passing their resistance on to the next generation.	23%
EN028002	If only large seeds are available, only the birds with large enough beaks will get enough food to survive and reproduce, and they will pass the trait of large beaks to the next generation.	12%