The BIG Biology Review
Tips and Suggestions to Help You Study and Keep You Sane!
 Try the practice EOC questions at:
https://www.fsd1.org/schools/southflorence/kcrawford/Documents/biologyreleased.pdf
 Find a study buddy or a study group.
 Attend after school review sessions. (Coming soon)
 Study a little each day. DON’T cram the night before.
 When studying, take breaks! Your brain needs an occasional break.
 Try to teach the information to yourself or a friend. If you can explain it, you probably know it.
 The night before the “BIG DAY,” relax and get a good night’s sleep.
 On the “BIG DAY,” eat a good breakfast.
 When in doubt, try to narrow your answer down to two choices. THINK through each
question! Take your time – There’s no prize for finishing first.
 Read all the answers.
 Relax, you have worked hard this year. Take a chance to “show off” all that you have
learned.
Scientific Inquiry
1. Smithers thinks that a special juice will increase the productivity of
workers. He creates two groups of 50 workers each and assigns each
group the same task (in this case, they're supposed to staple a set of
papers). Group A is given 1 cup of the special juice to drink while they
work. Group B is given 1 cup of water. After an hour, Smithers counts
how many stacks of papers each group has made. Group A made 2,113
stacks, Group B made 1,587 stacks.
a. What is Smithers trying to find out?
b. List 3 variables that would have to be a constant in this experiment.
c. Which variable is the independent variable?
d. Which variable is the dependent variable?
e. Is this experiment valid? Explain?
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2. Lisa is working on a science project. Her task is to answer the question: "Does Rogooti
(which is a commercial hair product) affect the speed of hair growth". She uses her family
members for this experiment and measures each person’s hair growth each day for a week.
Lisa has Bart use 10 mL of the product twice a day and his hair grows 9 cm. Lisa has Homer
use 20 mL of the product once a day and his hair grows 2 cm. Lisa has her
sister Maggy use 5 mL of the product 4 times a day and her hair grows 12
cm.
This is an example of an experiment that is not valid.
a. Describe 3 reasons why this experiment is not valid.
3. An experiment was performed to determine how much fertilizer was needed
to produce the most pumpkins on the vine. The results are shown below.
Pumpkin A
Type of
pumpkin
seed
Amount of
water given
daily (mL)
Amount of
sunlight
Temperature
(oC)
Amount of
fertilizer
given (g)
Type of soil
Day the
seeds were
planted
Number of
pumpkins
that the vine
produced.
Pumpkin B
Pumpkin C
a. What is the problem?
Jack-oLantern
Jack-oLantern
Jack-oLantern
b. What is the independent variable?
29.5
29.5
29.5
full sunlight
full sunlight
full sunlight
23.9
23.9
23.9
0
organic
200
organic
300
organic
c. What is/are the dependent
variables?
d. What were/are the constant(s)?
e. What is the control and why?
7/8/2007
7/8/2007
7/8/2007
3
6
2
f. How much fertilizer would you use to
grow the most pumpkins?
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4. A test was conducted to determine the highest possible soda geyser when placing Mentos
into the soda. The following data was collected:
a. What are the problem and the
question in the above
Soda A
Soda B Soda C Soda D
experiment?
Type of Diet
Diet
Diet
Diet
Diet
soda
Coke
Coke
Coke
Coke
Amount of
soda in the
b. What is the independent
container (L)
2
2
2
2
variable?
Temperature
of
surroundings
(oC)
24
24
24
24
c. What is/are the dependent
Temperature
variable(s)?
of beverage
o
( C)
23.9
23.9
23.9
23.9
Amount of
Mentos
given (g)
0
3
6
9
d. What were/are the constant(s)?
Day the
Mentos were
dropped
7/8/2007 7/8/2007 7/8/2007 7/8/2007
Estimated
height of the
e. What is the control and why?
soda geyser
(cm).
0
250
300
300
f. Using the information above,
would you drop 9 Mentos into
the diet soda? Explain why or
why not?
Safety in the Biology Classroom
1. What is an eyewash station? What is it used for?
2. What should you do in the event of an accident in the science lab?
3. What is the purpose of a safety shower?
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Cells
1. What is an organic compound?
2. What is an inorganic compound?
3. Energy in organic compounds is stored in ____________ __________. When these bonds
are broken energy is _______________.
4. Why would a person lose lots of weight by going on a low carb diet?
5. Fill in Chart Below:
Organic Molecule:
Subunits
(monomer)
Function:
Most Important to Know
Carbohydrates
Lipids
Proteins
Nucleic Acids
6. Highlight the words that belong to the following groups:
a. Lipids: Starches, fats, oils, butter, estrogen, enzymes, bilayer
b. Carbohydrates: starch, cellulose, amino acids, wax, estrogen
c. Proteins: Meat, Beans, amino acids, vegetable oil, enzymes, bilayer
d. Nucleic Acids: cytosine, starch, wax, thymine, DNA, bilayer
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Examples
7. State the function of the following organelles and match the parts to the following diagram:
a. nucleus
b. plasma membrane
c. cell wall
d. mitochondria
e. vacuoles
f. chloroplast
g. ribosomes
h. lysosomes
i.
centrioles
j.
vesicles
k. vacuoles
8. List three differences between an animal cell and a plant cell.
9. Explain how a compound light microscope works.
10. List the hierarchy of cell organization from largest to smallest below:
11. How is the structure of the cell related to its function? Give 2 examples with drawings.
12. What is the importance of chemical signals
between cells? Give 1 example.
13. Compare & contrast eukaryotic cells and
prokaryotic cells.
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14. List 8 characteristics of living things:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
15. What is homeostasis?
16. Are viruses living or nonliving? Why or why not?
17. How do cells maintain homeostasis?
18. Explain why water is important to cells.
19. Explain:
a. active transport vs. passive transport
b. diffusion vs. osmosis
c. semi-permeable membranes
d. facilitated diffusion vs. diffusion
e. endocytosis vs. exocytosis
20. On the line above the arrow, label osmosis or diffusion. To the right of the arrow, draw the
end result.
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Enzymes
1. What organic molecule is an enzyme?
2. An enzyme _______________ up chemical reactions by _______________ the
________________ energy.
3. List some things that can affect enzymes?
4. Can an enzyme be reused?
5. Is an enzyme specific to a particular job? Explain why
6. Label the Enzyme (active site, substrate, and products)
Cellular Energy
1. What is the main source of energy for all cells?
2. What is the chemical energy of a cell called? Sketch this molecule.
3. Define:
a. aerobic respiration-
b. anaerobic respiration-
4. Write the formula for cellular respiration.
5. Write the formula for photosynthesis.
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6. Aerobic Respiration occurs in (Plants / Animals / Both)?
7. Photosynthesis occurs in (Plants / Animals / Both)?
8. What factors affect the rate of photosynthesis?
9. What factors affect the rate of cellular respiration?
10. Which type of cellular respiration results in the production of the most ATP?
11. Name & describe the 2 types of anaerobic respiration.
Nucleic Acids
1. Compare the structure of DNA with that of RNA.
2. Where is DNA located within a prokaryotic cell?
Within a eukaryotic cell?
3. Name the nitrogen bases found in DNA and what they bond to.
4. Name the nitrogen bases found in RNA and what they bond to.
5. Why is the sequence of nucleotides so important?
6. Describe the process of DNA replication. What enzyme is the principle enzyme involved?
7. What is the end result of DNA replication?
8. What is a mutation?
9. At what point in the cell cycle does DNA replication occur?
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10. Why are there hydrogen bonds between each nitrogen base?
11. Describe the process of transcription and where it happens. What is the end result?
12. Describe the process of translation and where it happens. What is the end result?
13. Can translation occur before transcription? Why or why not?
Cellular Reproduction
1. What is gene expression?
2. How is gene expression related to cellular differentiation?
3. What is a disadvantage of cell differentiation?
4. Compare & Contrast Mitosis and Meiosis:
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5. Label each of the following stages. (IPMATC) Be familiar with the occurrences at each stage.
6. Define:
a. diploid -
b. haploid -
7. What is crossing over and when does it occur?
8. What’s the benefit of crossing over?
9. What is the Law of Independent Assortment? How does it increase variation?
10. What is a mutation? How does it increase variation?
11. What is nondisjunction?
12. How does non-disjunction result in variation?
13. How does fertilization result in variation?
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Heredity and Genetic Technology
1. Define:
a. dominant –
b. recessive –
c. homozygous –
d. heterozygous –
e. genotype –
f. phenotype –
2. Sample Monohybrid Cross Question:
a. In a genetics laboratory, two heterozygous tall plants are crossed. If tall is dominant
over short, what are the expected phenotypic results?
b. If one homozygous short plant is crossed with a heterozygous tall plant, what
percentage of the offspring will be short?
c. What are the genotypes of the parents that would produce 25% short and 75% tall pea
plants.
d. What are the genotypes of the parents that would produce 50% short and 50% tall pea
plants.
3. Look at the following karyotype. What can you
state about this individual?
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4. Explain the characteristics of the following:
a. Colorblindness
b. Sickle cell
c. Hemophilia
5. Sample incomplete dominance question:
a. When red and white flowers are crossed, pink flowers are produced. What is
expected when two pink flowers cross?
6. Sample Blood Type (Multiple Allele/ co-dominant) Question:
a. Mr. Jones has blood type A and Mrs. Jones has blood type AB. What is the probability
that they will have a child with blood type A if both of Mr. Jones’s parents were AB?
b. Is it possible for a male with A blood type to have a child with a female B blood type
who is O? Explain.
7. Why are males more likely to express a sex-linked trait?
8. Sample Sex-Linked trait Question:
Color blindness is a sex-linked recessive trait. A mother with normal color vision and a
colorblind father have a colorblind daughter. Which of the following statements is correct?
A. All of their daughters will be colorblind.
B. The mother is a carrier of the color blindness gene.
C. All of their sons will have normal color vision.
D. All of their sons will be colorblind.
9. Sample test cross question:
Black color is dominant over white in rats. In order to determine whether a black rat is
homozygous or heterozygous for the color trait, the rat should go through a test or back
cross. That means that the black rat would be mated to a
A. heterozygous black rat
B. hybrid white rat
C. white rat
D. homozygous black rat
10. In a pedigree, an open circle indicates ___________ and a solid square indicates ________.
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11. Answer the following using this information: In humans, albinism is a recessive trait. The
disorder causes a lack of pigment in the skin and hair, making an albino appear very pale
with white hair and pale blue eyes. This disorder also occurs in animals, a common albino
found in a laboratory is the white rat. The pedigrees below trace the inheritance of the allele
that causes albinism.
Given the following genotypes, describe the phenotypes
(normal or albino).
A. Fill out the blank with genotypes on the pedigree to the right.
AA = ________________________________
Aa = ________________________________
aa = ________________________________
B. Fill out the blanks with genotypes on the pedigree below.
How many children does the original couple have? ____
How many grandchildren? ________
12. What is a polygenic trait?
13. What were the reasons for establishing the human genome project?
14. How has the human genome project benefited humans?
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15. How can DNA technology allow us to:
a. Identify an individual?
b. Identify a person’s parents?
c. Investigate a crime scene?
d. What is amniocentesis?
16. What is a transgenic organism and give an example?
17. What is cloning?
18. What is gel electrophoresis?
19. Using the gel electrophoresis diagram below, which suspect committed the crime?
Criminal Blood
____
____
____
____
____
____
Suspect 1
____
Suspect 2
____
____
Suspect 3
____
____
____
____
____
____
____
____
____
____
____
____
20. What are some ethical implications and dangers of biotechnology?
Evolution
1. What did Charles Darwin contribute to our understanding of the origins of life?
2. What can we infer from the fossil record? Where do you find the oldest/youngest fossils?
3. What were the first living organisms to appear on Earth? How did they obtain energy?
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4. Explain how biochemical similarities support evolution.
5. Explain how anatomical similarities supports evolution.
6. Explain how fossil evidence supports evolution & shows evolutionary patterns through time.
7. Define natural selection.
8. How are variation and natural selection related?
9. Describe co-evolution and give an example.
10. What is geographic isolation?
11. What is reproductive isolation?
12. What is temporal isolation?
13. What are some factors that influence genetic variation?
14. Define the following and explain how they are related to natural selection:
a. pesticide resistance –
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b. antibiotic resistance –
15. Circle each of the following as prokaryotic or eukaryotic AND as autotrophic or heterotrophic
AND as unicellular or multicellular.
Bacteria – pro / eu
auto / hetero
uni / multi
Plants – pro / eu
auto / hetero
uni / multi
Animals – pro / eu
auto / hetero
uni / multi
16. Which would be the most primitive organism?
17. Circle 2 organisms that would have the most similar
DNA.
18. Why did you choose those 2 organisms (in the question
above)
Ecology
1. State the difference between biotic and abiotic factors.
2. How do limiting factors affect carrying capacity?
3. Define these types of relationships (symbiosis).
a. Mutualism vs. commensalism
b. Parasitism vs. predator/prey
c. competition4. Define and give an example of:
a. density-dependent limiting factor
b. density-independent limiting factor
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5. What is carrying capacity?
6. Describe the Carbon cycle
7. Biogeochemical Vocab- define or compare the following terms
a. Denitrification vs. Nitrogen Fixation
b. How does ozone relate to acid rain?
c. CFCs
d. Fossil Fuels
e. Hydrologic cycle
f. Transpiration vs. Condensation vs. Evaporation
g. Closed System
8. How can humans influence cycling with:
a. deforestationb. factories-
9. How does photosynthesis relate to energy getting into ecosystems?
10. What role do decomposers play in the environment?
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11. Label each trophic level.
12. What happens to energy in an ecosystem? What happens to nutrients?
13. How much energy is passed from one trophic level to the next in an ecosystem? What
happens to the rest?
14. What is a food web?
15. How have increased human population impacted acid rain production, habitat destruction
and the introduction of a non-native species.
16. What is global warming? What causes it?
17. What are the possible effects of global warming?
18. What are some ways that carbon dioxide emissions can be reduced?
19. State if the following have a positive or negative impact on the environment.
a. human population sizeb. human population densityc. resource used. Pesticide use18
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