Unit 5 Scientific Article June 2015 – Questions
These are some possible questions that could come up from the material in the scientific article. There is some
repetition of topics and so some questions will have similar answers. The number of marks, in brackets after the
question, indicates the detail required by the answer. This is the number of relevant points I could think of for the
answer, but there may be more that I have missed.
1) Para 2&3 (also mentioned in other paragraphs e.g. para 37 and 46) – Is it ethical to allow the use of
performance-enhancing drugs in sports? What are some of the issues we have to consider e.g. safety,
costs, availability? Who is to blame if an athlete fails a drugs test? (minimum 4)
2) Para 3 – List three different classes of performance-enhancing drugs and describe briefly how they act to
enhance athletic performance? (6)
3) Para 6 – How do anabolic steroids (steroid hormones) have an effect on cells? (5)
4) Para 7 – Beta-blockers are drugs that block the action of the sympathetic nervous system on the heart.
Describe how the resting heartbeat is coordinated within the heart. What would be the effect of an athlete
using beta-blockers? (10)
5) Para 14 – what are the functions of tendons and ligaments? How are their structures/properties related to
their functions? Why might steroid injections weaken the ligaments or muscles? (9)
6) Para 15 – If you were to analyse a muscle sample from a weight-lifter or a judo competitor, what type of
muscle fibres do you think would be more prominent? Why? What are the properties of these types of
fibres? (5)
7) Para 17 – anticholinergic agents block the action of acetylcholine. Describe the how acetylcholine is
involved in synaptic transmission of nerve impulses. How might anticholinergic agents interfere with the
normal function of acetylcholine? (10)
8) Para 18 – Beta-2 agonists cause hyperpolarisation of smooth muscle cell membranes. How might they
achieve this? (3)
9) Para 19 – the haematocrit is the proportion of red blood cells in a blood sample. Why might a high
haematocrit be dangerous for an athlete? (2)
10) Para 19 – the production of recombinant human erythropoietin is currently being investigated using
transgenic sheep. The human erythropoietin will be secreted into the sheep’s milk and purified. Explain
how such an animal could be produced. (9)
11) Para 21 – With reference to the structure of skeletal muscle, in what way could anabolic steroids affect
muscle so as to “promote muscle growth”? (3)
12) Para 21 – Describe how anabolic steroids could lead to changes in protein synthesis (7)
13) Para 21 – What is atherosclerosis? What could be the consequences of developing this condition? (9)
14) Para 24 – SERMs are drug molecules that bind to the oestrogen steroid hormone receptor. What effects
would this have in the cell? (2)
15) Para 26 – Describe how peptide hormones act on target cells (6)
16) Para 29 – Proteins such as recombinant human growth hormone can be made in large quantities using
bacteria and simple genetic engineering techniques. Describe you would produce this recombinant protein
in bacteria (7)
17) Para 30 – What is “homeostasis”? If GH has the opposite action to insulin, with respect to glucose
homeostasis, describe how the body can use these hormones in glucose homeostasis. (8)
18) Para 31 – Describe how gene doping for insulin growth factor 1 could be carried out on human athletes. (4)
19) Para 40 – A mutation in the EPOR gene is thought to cause increased cell division in the blood cells that
will differentiate to form red blood cells. Describe the sequence of events that occurs when cells divide in
this manner. How is this cell division usually controlled? (12)
20) Para 41 – What is a “fast-twitch muscle fibre”? Why would the lack of a protein from fast-twitch muscle
fibres be a disadvantage for sprinters? (10)
21) Para 47 – Describe how it would be possible to use gene therapy to introduce an desirable allele of a gene
for a muscle protein into one of the muscle cell. (4)
22) Para 47 – describe how the muscle proteins work together to achieve contraction of the muscle. (9)
23) Para 50 – What is the role of creatine in a muscle cell? Why would an athlete want to achieve higher
creatine levels in their muscles? (6)