What term refers to physical characteristics, what it looks like?

• A. Phenotype
• B. Genotype
• C. Probability
• D. Inheritance

Answer: (A)

The term that describes observable physical characteristics is phenotype. It’s what you can see or measure—the outward expression of a organism’s traits, such as height, eye color, flower color, or leaf shape. The phenotype results from the actual genes (genotype) and how those genes interact with the environment, so two organisms with the same genotype might show slightly different phenotypes under different conditions. The genotype, by contrast, is the genetic makeup—the alleles an individual carries—not necessarily what is visibly expressed. Probability relates to how likely certain traits are to appear, and inheritance is about how traits are passed from parents to offspring, not the trait itself. So phenotype best matches “what it looks like.”