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GATE 2022 BT – Question 44

Recombinant DNA Technology and Other Tools in Biotechnology · Computational tools: Bioinformatics resources, databases, sequence analysis, alignment and phylogeny · 2 marks · Multiple choice

The maximum parsimony method is used to construct a phylogenetic tree for a set of sequences. Which one of the following statements about the method is CORRECT?

  1. It predicts the tree that minimizes the steps required to generate the observed variations
  2. It predicts the tree that maximizes the steps required to generate the observed variations
  3. It predicts the tree with the least number of branch points
  4. It employs probability calculations to identify the tree

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Correct answer: (A) It predicts the tree that minimizes the steps required to generate the observed variations

Explanation

**Maximum parsimony** is a character-based method for building phylogenetic trees. It follows Occam's razor: the best tree is the one that explains the observed sequence variation with the **fewest evolutionary changes** (substitutions).

Answer **A**.