Explain the following terms:
Law of Dominance:
Topic: Law of Dominance
Try it
Pick an option and check your answer. The full worked answer is below either way.
Answer
(b) Out of a pair of contrasting alleles present together, only the dominant allele is able to express itself while the recessive remains suppressed.
The DOMINANT allele expresses itself and the RECESSIVE one is masked — which is what the word "dominant" means.
Option (a) is the trap: it is the correct sentence with DOMINANT and RECESSIVE swapped. Read those two words carefully rather than skimming the shape of the statement, because all four options are otherwise almost identical.
THE POINT THAT MATTERS: the recessive allele is MASKED, not destroyed. It is carried unchanged through the F1 generation and reappears in a quarter of the F2 — which is exactly how Mendel knew it had survived intact, and the reasoning that led him to the idea of a gene as a discrete particle.
It is also called Mendel’s FIRST LAW of inheritance.
Out of a pair of contrasting alleles present together, only the dominant allele is able to express itself while the recessive remains suppressed.