What term describes passing of traits from parents to offspring?

• A. Heredity
• B. Genetics
• C. Evolution
• D. Reproduction

Answer: (A)

Heredity describes how traits are passed from parents to offspring. Traits such as eye color or blood type are carried by genes on chromosomes, and each parent contributes one set of genes to their offspring. The result is inherited similarities plus potential variation due to how different alleles combine. Genetics is the study of how this inheritance works, but the act of passing traits from parent to child is heredity. Evolution refers to changes in trait frequencies over many generations in populations, not the direct transfer from parent to offspring. Reproduction is the process of producing offspring, which enables heredity to occur, but it isn’t the term for the transmission of traits itself.