Question

Practice It!

Determine which statement about pedigrees is accurate.



Pedigrees show how a trait is inherited throughout several generations.


Pedigrees show a trait passed only from parent to the first set of offspring.


Pedigrees are only use by doctors to track sicknesses

Answer 1

Pedigrees are tools that illustrate the inheritance of traits or genetic disorders across several generations, allowing the analysis of inheritance patterns such as sex-linked or autosomal traits and predicting offspring inheritance probabilities.

Step-by-step explanation:

The accurate statement about pedigrees is that they show how a trait is inherited throughout several generations. Pedigrees are diagrams that track the occurrence of a particular trait or genetic disorder within a family over many generations. By analyzing a pedigree, scientists can determine if a trait is sex-linked, autosomal, and whether individuals are heterozygous or homozygous for a certain allele. This tool is incredibly useful in predicting the likelihood of offspring inheriting a genetic disorder or trait.

Answer 2

Pedigrees show how a trait is inherited throughout several generations.

Step-by-step explanation:

We can eliminate the second answer choice because pedigrees show a trait passed through multiple generations, not just a trait passed from parents to the first set of offspring: the purpose of a pedigree is to see the pattern of how the trait passes, so there needs to be more than a generation of just parents and the first set of offspring. The third statement can also be eliminated because the trait being tracked might not always be one that leads to sickness. This leaves the first statement, which is correct.