Role of Heredity and Environment — Hard

Q1. Statement A: According to Douglas and Holland, heredity covers the structures, physical characteristics, functions and capacities of the child that come down from the parents and remote ancestors. Statement B: The same definition implies that environmental forces also form part of heredity. Which is correct?

• A. Both A and B are correct
• B. A is correct; B is incorrect — Douglas-Holland's definition keeps heredity to what is biologically transmitted, not environmental forces
• C. A is incorrect; B is correct
• D. Both A and B are incorrect

Q2. Which of the following is NOT correctly classified as a hereditary trait?

• A. Height and weight of the body
• B. Skin complexion and shape of facial features
• C. Reflex actions present at birth
• D. Mother tongue spoken by the child at home

Q3. Assertion (A): Gilbert defines environment as 'anything immediately surrounding an object and exerting a direct influence on it'. Reason (R): This wording places environment inside the genes of the child rather than outside the organism. Choose the correct option

• A. Both A and R are true, and R correctly explains A
• B. Both A and R are true, but R does not correctly explain A
• C. A is true, R is false — Gilbert's wording locates environment outside the organism, not inside the genes
• D. A is false, R is true

Q4. Environment is the aggregate of all external forces that influence a child's life. Which set of forces, taken together, is NOT correctly described as part of this environment?

• A. Physical, social, moral and economic forces
• B. Cultural, emotional and intellectual influences
• C. Library, laboratory and co-curricular activities at school
• D. Genes inherited from grandparents and remote ancestors

Q5. Statement A: In the twin-study table, fraternal twins show an IQ correlation of 0.70 — higher than ordinary siblings at 0.50, even though both share roughly the same proportion of genes. Statement B: The higher fraternal-twin figure is most plausibly attributed to their sharing the same prenatal womb and being reared together in the same home at the same age. Choose the correct option

• A. Both A and B are correct, and B helps explain the gap shown in the table
• B. A is correct; B is incorrect — the unit attributes the gap to extra genes shared by fraternal twins
• C. A is incorrect — the unit gives siblings a higher correlation than fraternal twins
• D. Both A and B are incorrect

Q6. IQ-correlation table, unrelated children show a correlation of 0.30 while parents and their own children show 0.31. The near-equality of these two figures is best read as showing that

• A. parents have no genetic link with their own children
• B. the parent-child relationship is purely social and not biological
• C. once the shared genetic line is small, the leftover similarity is largely accounted for by environment
• D. heredity is meaningless for predicting a child's IQ at any level

Q7. Two identical-twin girls are separated at birth: one is raised by a doctor's family in Pune that speaks English and Marathi at home; the other by a farming family in a hamlet of rural Bihar that speaks only Bhojpuri. By age 10, the Pune twin reads English newspapers; the Bihar twin reads only Bhojpuri and helps in the fields. This contrast is best explained by

• A. identical twins inheriting different genes despite a shared zygote
• B. heredity becoming inactive after the age of three
• C. the powerful role of environment — twins reared apart tend to acquire the qualities of their foster parents
• D. language being purely a hereditary trait that activates around age 10

Q8. Which of the following is the best inference drawn from Freeman's 71-children study together with the example of a child of illiterate parents who learns ten languages by the age of ten?

• A. Heredity has no role in language or measured intelligence
• B. Both observations show that a richer environment can lift performance well beyond what poor home conditions would predict
• C. Parents' literacy is the strongest single predictor of a child's intelligence
• D. Mental rating is fixed at birth and cannot rise

Q9. The joint working of heredity and environment is likened to the area of a rectangle, where the area is the development level and the two sides are heredity and environment. Which conclusion follows most directly from this analogy?

• A. If either heredity or environment is zero, development level is also zero — both must be present for any area
• B. Heredity alone, like a single side, can yield a full rectangle of development
• C. Adding heredity and environment is the same as multiplying them
• D. Time, the third dimension, is irrelevant to the rectangle

Q10. MacIver and Page, hold that an individual's development is 'a product of both heredity and environment; neither can act in isolation'. The thinker who most directly supports this position with the formula H X E X T = DL is

• A. Anastasi
• B. Ross
• C. Peterson
• D. Gilbert

Q11. Statement A: The relative-significance discussion suggests that heredity tends to set the upper limits of a child's possible development. Statement B: The same discussion suggests that how far a child actually moves toward those upper limits depends largely on environment. With reference to Landis, Woodworth, Murphy and the seed-soil analogy taken together, which is correct?

• A. Only A is correct
• B. Only B is correct
• C. Both A and B are correct readings of the unit
• D. Neither A nor B is supported by the unit

Q12. The joint role of heredity and environment is illustrated with this analogy: heredity is the raw material, culture is the design, and the family acts as the craftsman that shapes the raw material according to the design. The point of the analogy is best stated as

• A. raw material alone, without design or craftsman, produces a finished product
• B. the family can change the raw material into entirely new genetic material
• C. without the design (culture) and the craftsman (family), even good raw material (heredity) will not become a developed personality
• D. design and craftsman matter only after adolescence

Q13. Sunita teaches Class 4 in a government school where nearly half the children are first-generation learners from labour-class homes. Considering the educational implications, which response is most consistent?

• A. Assume that the gap is purely hereditary and lower expectations for these children
• B. Treat them like any other student with no extra plan, since hereditary capacities cannot be changed
• C. Recognise the limited educative environment at home and provide extra support — guidance, library access, individual attention — to compensate
• D. Send all first-generation learners to a separate remedial school

Q14. Which of the following is NOT a correct educational implication of the 'individual differences arise from heredity and environment' position?

• A. The classroom teacher has to deal with gifted, normal and below-average children together and plan for all three
• B. Schools should provide a computer lab, library and other resources for a better mental environment
• C. Different teaching methods, project work and communicative teaching are needed to match different interests and aptitudes
• D. Below-average children should be assumed to have a fixed limit and may be excluded from new methods

Q15. Two government primary schools in the same block draw students from very similar homes. School A has a working library, an active reading club, a small science corner and teachers who use group projects. School B has none of these and uses only the textbook and the blackboard. After two years, School A's children consistently outperform School B's on the same district test. The best reading of this result is

• A. the children of School A had inherited higher intelligence than those of School B
• B. scholastic achievement depends largely on the school climate the children are exposed to — School A's richer mental environment lifted performance
• C. test outcomes at this age are decided purely by the home, so the school comparison is meaningless
• D. the children of School B will catch up automatically once their heredity 'matures'