BIOL 111 Midterm 1 Sample exam questions
BIOL 111 Midterm- Thursday, October 10, 2019
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8am-920am
o Be on time
o Bring a pen or pencil
o If you use a pencil, you may not submit your work for remarking.
The exam will be between 5-10 multi-part questions. Most questions will require answers in
complete sentences; others will require only a 1-5 word term to answer. Sorry, NO multiple
choice.
Cellphones and other digital devices are not permitted.
You are allowed to bring in one 8.5x11” paper as notes for the exam.
o You may use both sides of the paper.
o The paper must be written WITH YOUR OWN HAND. NO COPY-AND-PASTED DIAGRAMS.
NO digitally or typewritten text. Only the work of your own hand, written in pencil or
pen.
o The paper must have your name written name and student ID written clearly.
o You must submit the study guide with your exam.
Sample short answer questions
Chapter 1
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A scientist wishes to test the effect of anabolic steroids on the sprinting speed of mice. He
obtains two groups of mice. Group A is given daily injections of 1µg of testosterone in .5mL
saline solution. Group B is given daily injections of .5mL of saline solution only. The treatments
are conducted for 3 months. At the end of the treatments, their sprinting speeds are measured
using a treadmill, and a very scary stuffed cat.
In this experiment,
o What is the dependent variable?
o What is the independent variable?
o The control group
o The experimental group
o Identify some confounding variables that might affect the experiment.
o How could the experiment be made to be double-blind, and why is that important for
the credibility of the experiment?
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Design an experiment which will test if iron limits growth.
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Chapter 13
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Define the term “evolutionary arms race” and give an example. Explain how the example fits the
definition you provide.
Explain Step-by-step in complete sentences how the peppered moth in darwin’s time might have
fluctuated from a primarily peppered one, with a small mutant subpopulation of a dark morph,
to a majority of dark morph, and then back again.
Explain step-by-step in complete sentences how natural selection might work to make crop pests
resistant to a particular pesticide.
You encounter a new species of rodent. Explain how you could tell if it had undergone sexual
selection in its past.
If natural selection means “survival of the fittest”, what does “fitness” mean?
Does sexual selection confer any advantage to the species in which it occurs? If so, what, and if
not, explain why not. Conversely, what advantages tend to be enjoyed by species for which little
to no sexual selection has occurred?
Do you think that genes involved with the human immune system, which fights infection from
bacteria, viruses and other microbes, would evolve faster or more slowly than genes for other
human traits? Support your answer with facts from class.
Look at the diagrams below. Which of the following represents…
…Directional selection?_______
…Disruptive selection?______
…Stabilizing selection?_______
…Directional selection?_______
Of those 3, which would be the most likely to form new species? Explain why this one would be more
likely to form new species than the others.
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Chapter 14
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Compare and contrast prezygotic and postzygotic barriers. Give an example of each.
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According to the phylogenetic tree of life, the archaea are more closely related to the eukarya
than they are to the bacteria, even
though both archaea and bacteria are
considered prokaryotes, and eukarya are
eukaryotes. Explain how the
phylogenetic tree of life shows this.
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Octopus eyes and Human eyes both have complex eyes with a lens, iris, ciliary muscle, and
photoreceptor cells. However, as shown in the diagram below, in human eyes, nerve fibers
travel on the inner surface of the eye, and thus must be transparent so they don’t interfere with
the path of light to the receptor cells, whereas nerve fibers for octopus eyes travel outside the
light-collecting surface of the eye, and thus don’t need to be transparent. As chordates, humans
share closer common ancestry with hemichordate, which lack complex eyes, as seen in the
phylogenetic tree below. The tree also shows that mollusks like the octopus share closer
common ancestry with annelids (earthworms) which lack complex eyes.
Should the relationship between human eyes and octopus eyes be described as
homologous or analogous? Explain your answer.
The condition Ellis-Van Creveld syndrome is significantly more common in populations of Amish in
Pennsylvania than it is across North America. The condition is genetic, and is manifested in higher
incidences of dwarfism. Amish in Pennsylvania began as a small population of colonists around 300
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years ago, and because of religious principles the Amish tend to marry other Amish and not to
intermarry with outside populations.
Based on the information provided, would you describe this phenomenon as homology, disruptive
selection, sexual selection, or the founder effect? Explain your answer in complete sentences.
Chapter 20
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Define the term ecological niche.
Explain why two different living things cannot occupy the same niche.
Can an individual of particular species be a secondary and a tertiary consumer within its
lifetime? Explain how they can, or why they can’t.
Chapter 19
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Define invasive species. Describe 2 characteristics species can have which make it likely that they
will become invasives.
Chapter 2
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Name 2 things that feature hydrogen bonds besides water.
Compare covalent, ionic, and hydrogen bonds. Describe how they are formed, and the kinds of
substances formed by their formation.
What is electronegativity? Define electronegativity, and explain how electronegativity influences
physical characteristics of water.
Explain why water’s tendency to
Chapter 3
1. Biological molecules. READ and answer BOTH parts (a and b) of the question
a. In the blanks on the lef, label the diagrams of the following molecules as either:
carbohydrates, lipids, amino acids, or nucleic acids.
b. On the diagrams themselves (any of the four diagrams below), use arrows to label each
of the following functional groups: Amino, phosphate, carboxyl, hydroxyl. Note: each
functional group need be labeled only once.
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______________
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What is the difference between:
o A monomer and a dimer?
o A monomer and a polymer?
o A carbohydrate and a hydrocarbon?
o An isomer and a chiral stereoisomer?
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Define polymer, and give 2 examples.
Differentiate dehydration synthesis & hydrolysis.
Either directly or indirectly, proteins do nearly everything inside living cells that needs to be
done. Explain how proteins, as a category of molecules, manage to serve such versatile roles
inside living cells.
Homework
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Define Echolocation. How does it work? What kinds of living things are able to echolocate?
Explain how moths and big brown bats are an example of co-evolution, naming at least one
relevant adaptation of each.
As they hunt nocturnally, Big Brown Bats make different kinds of ultrasonic vocalizations
depending on how close they detect their prey to be. As they scan widely for their moth prey,
vocalizations are given about 1 time per second, but this increases to 12 times per second as the
moth zeroes in on its target. The last part of the vocalization is the “terminal buzz” where the
bat increases the rate of its vocalizations to 160 times per second right before it bites down for
the kill.
Bat-and-Moth biologist Aaron Corcoran performed an experiment where a moth was
mounted on a stand in a dark box, and bat vocalizations were played to it, and the moth’s
behavior recorded. 10-second bursts of 3 different kinds of vocalizations were played to the
moths- the 1-per-second wide range scan, the 12-per-second scan, and the 160-per-second
terminal buzz.
Identify the independent variable and the dependent variable of the experiment.
What might a reasonable hypothesis have been for this experiment?
Explain the evolutionary purpose for Toxoplasma and Lycaenid caterpillars changing the behavior
of their hosts and attendants.
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