Q 01/05

Mendel was abbot of St Thomas' Abbey in which city?

A) Brno

B) Prague

C) Bratislava

D) Krakow

Answer · why

A) Brno

Brno: then called Brünn, its abbey was less a cloister than a college, a dozen or so scholar-friars whose main public duty was to supply teachers for ...

Q 02/05

Which duty of a parish priest upset the young Mendel so badly that his abbot made him a teacher instead?

A) Hearing confessions

B) Preaching sermons

C) Visiting the sick

D) Conducting funerals

Answer · why

C) Visiting the sick

Visiting the sick: his abbot told the bishop that Mendel was seized by an unconquerable timidity at a sick-bed and had fallen dangerously ill himself,...

Q 03/05

Born Johann, Mendel took the name Gregor on joining which religious order?

A) The Benedictines

B) The Augustinians

C) The Jesuits

D) The Franciscans

Answer · why

B) The Augustinians

The Augustinians: his physics professor, asked to pick a student for the monastery, recommended him as a young man of solid character and almost the b...

Q 04/05

Which animals, the abbey's main source of income, had made breeding a hot topic in Mendel's homeland?

A) Horses

B) Sheep

C) Pigs

D) Geese

Answer · why

B) Sheep

Sheep: local breeders had formed a society decades earlier to improve their wool, and Mendel's own abbot, a member, was already asking what exactly is...

Q 05/05

Mendel built his laws by tracking how many contrasting traits of the pea plant?

A) Two

B) Seven

C) Twenty

D) Sixty

Answer · why

B) Seven

Seven: he spent two years testing thirty-four varieties first, and kept only traits that came in two clear-cut forms, such as tall or short, so that e...