A student learns that the traits offspring express depend on the genes they receive from their parents during meiosis.

Question

She knows that brown eyes (B) are dominant to blue eyes (b). She views a Punnett square of a cross between a homozygous parent and a heterozygous parent.

Which two questions can the student answer using the Punnett square?

A.
What is the genotype of the female parent?

B.
What are the genotypes of the grandparents?

C.
What is the probability of an offspring being male?

D.
What is the probability of an offspring carrying a recessive allele?

E.
What is the percent likelihood of an offspring having brown eyes?

Answer 1

Using the Punnett square, the student can answer the following two questions:

D. What is the probability of an offspring carrying a recessive allele?

E. What is the percent likelihood of an offspring having brown eyes?

The Punnett square can help determine the genotype ratios among offspring resulting from the genetic cross of the parents, which can be used to calculate the probabilities of carrying specific alleles and the expression of traits (like brown or blue eyes).

The other options (A, B, and C) cannot be determined from the information provided in the Punnett square regarding the current cross between the two specific parents.