BIOL 3065
Lab Practical Study Guide
Format: The Lab Practical will consist of 20 questions, including multiple choice, multiple
answer, matching, and sample calculations. You will be permitted to bring in one 3”x5” notecard
for use on the assessment, but no other electronic resources will be allowed.
Concepts - Review the following items related to basic lab techniques and project-related
principles:
1. Can you demonstrate best practices for handling a micropipette? How do you set it to a
specific volume?
2. Can you demonstrate best practices for obtaining tips and tubes while minimizing
contamination?
3. Can you perform basic chemical calculations to create common lab solutions and dilutions?
4. Can you set up a PCR mix for a specific number of reactions? Why do we use master mixes
during PCR?
5. Can you calculate how many molecules would be produced in a PCR reaction with ‘X’
number of cycles?
6. Can you describe where primers are designed and how the forward and reverse primers are
different?
7. Can you accurately estimate the size of a DNA fragment based on how far it and a DNA
ladder migrate on an agarose gel?
8. Can you explain the general idea behind metabarcoding? What kind of genes should we
target?
9. Can you explain what the bands on an agarose gel should look like when examining
genomic DNA? Why might you see smears?
10.Can you explain in chemical terms why we should be cautious when handling ethidium
bromide and why it is useful in genetics?
11.Can you explain why the bands produced by PCR product on an agarose gel would be
bigger or smaller than the band you expect to see from genomic DNA?
12.Can you briefly describe the workflow for the course project?
13.Can you explain what would happen if you overboiled your agarose gel or let it cool too
long?
14.Can you draw a diagram of a PCR cycle and explain what happens at each temperature
stage?
15.Can you convert between milliliters and microliters?
16.Can you estimate volume in a 1.5 mL microcentrifuge tube?
17.Can you explain the basic premise behind spin column DNA extraction?
18.Can you interpret the results of a NanoDrop and explain what they mean about the quality of
your DNA? What does the 260:280 ratio tell you? 260:230?
19.What steps did you take to clean up your sequencing data spreadsheet? How many tables
did you export? What program did you use to analyze the data?
20.What is the difference between rarefied and non-rarefied data?
21.When would you use a heat map versus a bar plot?
22.What does the Shannon metric of diversity include that is not in the normal alpha number?
23.Can you explain what BLAST does and what kind of information it provides? What is an E
value? Are the results more significant with a high or low E value?
0
