Mixed Questions (Supplemental Reviewer) — Soil Science Reviewer Questions
300 board-style Mixed Questions (Supplemental Reviewer) items for the Agriculturist Licensure Examination. Try 40 questions free; lifetime access is ₱49. Texture drives water, water drives aeration, and aeration drives nutrient availability. Reason down that chain and most items unlock.
300 built-in questions in this topic · approved additions may publish live · part of Soil Science
Try Mixed Questions (Supplemental Reviewer)
Sample Mixed Questions (Supplemental Reviewer) questions with answers and explanations
Board-style items taken from the Soil Science bank. Every answer is explained, which is the part that makes a review question worth doing twice.
-
Which description best defines soil in modern soil science?
- A. A mixture of fertilizer nutrients and decomposed plant residues spread over the land surface each season
- B. Any unconsolidated material lying above bedrock, regardless of biological activity or of the processes that produced it
- C. A dynamic natural body of mineral and organic constituents, water, air, and organisms that develops at Earth’s surface and supports multiple functions correct
- D. A loose layer composed only of weathered mineral particles, with no water, air, or living organisms present
Why: Soil is a dynamic natural body formed through interacting physical, chemical, and biological processes; it is more than weathered rock alone.
-
What is a pedon?
- A. The smallest three-dimensional body of soil that can represent the nature and arrangement of its horizons correct
- B. A group of similar soil series occurring within a province
- C. The mineral portion of a surface horizon
- D. The vertical face exposed in a soil pit
Why: A pedon is the basic three-dimensional sampling/classification unit used to represent a soil.
-
What does the term polypedon denote?
- A. A single horizon having both eluvial and illuvial properties
- B. A contiguous group of similar pedons that constitutes a soil individual in the landscape correct
- C. A soil profile that contains more than one parent material
- D. A laboratory composite made from multiple soil samples
Why: A polypedon is an assemblage of contiguous, similar pedons and is treated as a soil individual.
-
Which branch of soil science emphasizes soil genesis, morphology, and classification as a natural body?
- A. Petrology
- B. Edaphology
- C. Pedology correct
- D. Agronomy
Why: Pedology studies soils as natural bodies, including their formation, morphology, and classification.
-
Which approach to soil science focuses primarily on how soil properties influence plant growth and land use?
- A. Edaphology correct
- B. Mineralogy
- C. Geomorphology
- D. Pedology
Why: Edaphology emphasizes soil in relation to living organisms, especially plants and practical land use.
-
What are the three physical phases commonly recognized in soil?
- A. Mineral, organic, and biological
- B. Air, humus, and roots
- C. Sand, silt, and clay
- D. Solid, liquid, and gas correct
Why: Soil is commonly described as a three-phase system consisting of solids, soil solution, and soil air.
-
Which soil component includes sand, silt, clay, and rock-derived minerals?
- A. Soil atmosphere
- B. Soil solution
- C. Soil organic matter
- D. Mineral matter correct
Why: Mineral matter is the inorganic solid fraction produced largely from rocks and minerals.
-
What does soil organic matter include?
- A. Only microorganisms living in the rhizosphere
- B. Only stable humus that no longer decomposes
- C. Living and dead organic materials and their decomposition products in soil correct
- D. Only fresh crop residues on the soil surface
Why: Soil organic matter encompasses organic materials at different stages of decomposition, including living biomass and residues.
Other Soil Science topics
- Computational Questions — 250 questions
- Soil Physics — 20 questions
- Soil Fertility — 17 questions
- Soil Chemistry — 13 questions