cladistics?

Question

When using a cladistic approach to systematics, which of the following is considered most important for classification?

A. shared primitive characters

B. analogous primitive characters

C. shared derived characters

D. the degree of evolutionary divergence
E. overall phenotypic similarity

I'm not sure if this should be A or C. I am leaning towards C, because these characters are unique to a particular clade and would seem to be better for classifying.

Answer 1

I would choose C as well. They may not still have the same primitive characters any more. And analogous means that species evolved the same characteristics, arriving at that similar destination after having started from different origins.