Genetics practice problems
1. The offspring of a cross between two red-flowered plants show a ratio of 3 red flowered
plants to one white flowered plant. Which trait is dominant? What must the genotypes
of the parents be?
2. In pea plants, tall is dominant over short. Suppose you have a tall plant, but do not
know if it is homozygous or heterozygous. How could you find out?
3. What are the chances of tossing four pennies at the same time and having them all be
tails?
4. Watermelons with a round shape are crossed with those having a flatter shape. Some
of the offspring have an oval shape. Explain.
5. Show the offspring from a female guinea pig that is white heterozygous rough and a
male heterozygous guinea pig. (Black is dominant over white, Rough is dominant over
smooth).
6. Colors of wheat kernels range from white to dark red with various shades of pink in
between. What pattern of inheritance controls kernel color?
7. A space creature has traits inherited by Mendel’s laws. Purple eyes are dominant over
yellow eyes. Two purple eyed creatures mate and produce six offspring, four with
purple eyes, and two with yellow eyes. What are the genotypes of the parents?
8. You inspect an ear of corn and find the following number of kernels:
461 purple / starchy
142 purple / sweet
156 yellow / starchy
53 yellow / sweet
What genotypes did the parent corn plants likely have? Support your answer with a
Punnett square.
9. What is the probability that six children in a family will all be boys?
10. A cross between a homozygous red horse and homozygous white horse produced
offspring with a roan coat. Roan horses have both red and white hairs. What results
would you expect if you crossed two roan horses? What pattern of inheritance is
demonstrated?
11. The offspring of a cross between a purple flowered plant and a white flowered plant
are 23 purple flowered to 26 white flowered. What are the genotypes of the parents
and which allele is dominant?
12. An ecologist observes that a population of plants in a meadow has flowers that are red,
yellow, white, pink, or purple. What is likely to be the inheritance pattern?
13. A test cross on a cat suspected of being heterozygous for an undesirable trait produces
ten kittens, none of which have the trait. What is the presumed genotype of the cat?
Explain.
14. Of the following pedigree, is the trait dominant or recessive?
II
III
15. A man is accused of fathering two children, one with type O blood and the other with
type A. The man has AB blood. Could he be the father of both children? Explain.
16. What kind of cross produces a 9:3:3:1 cross?
17. A couple without a family history of CF has a child with CF. What is the likelihood that
they will have another child with CF?
18. You are asked to design a breeding program fro four o’clock flowers. When red and
white flowers are crossed, pink flowers result. YOU ARE PROVIDED only with pink
parents. Design a program that produces only pink offspring.
19. A cross between a black rooster and a white hen produces blue offspring. Show likely
offspring when two blue chickens are bred.
20. In fruit flies, if an offspring is a white eyed female and her female parent has red eyes,
what must be the genotype of her male parent?
21. In fruit flies, the gene for tan body color (T) is dominant over the gene for ebony color
(t). The gene for red eyes (R ) is dominant over the gene for white eyes (r ). The latter
trait is sex linked.
a. Cross a homozygous ebony female with red eyes and a heterozygous tan male
with white eyes.
b. Cross a heterozygous tan red eyed female with an ebony red eyed male.
22. a. What is the pattern of inheritance in the following pedigree?
b. What is the likely genotype of individual II-2?
c. What is the likely genotype of individual III-5?
I
II
III
IV
23. Show the cross for a normal father and a mother that is a carrier for hemophilia. What
percent of their children will have the disease?
24. Cat fur color is sex linked. Only female cats can be calico (black and yellow).
a. Cross a calico female with a yellow male cat.
b. Cross a yellow male with a black female cat.
25. What offspring are likely from a red eyed male fruit fly and a female with white eyes?
26. What percentage of offspring will be color blind when a female with a colorblind father
has children with a colorblind male?