Question 4
A characteristic that none of a child’s parents or grandparents shows appears in the child. What does this most likely mean?
The right answer is the one marked above.
The characteristic was carried through those generations without showing. An inherited characteristic can pass through several generations unseen and then reappear. That is what a recessive allele does, as the next skill explains.
This is the finding activity 20.1 is designed to produce — the reason the activity asks you to look for a characteristic none of your relatives has.