Final Exam Free Response Review
1. Errors in mitosis and meiosis can result in chromosomal abnormalities.
a. Identify and describe a common chromosomal mutation.
b. In what organism does it occur?
c. Is it harmful or beneficial to the organism?
2. Mendel was a monk who lived in a monastery and experimented with pea
plants.
a. Provide three reasons why Mendel’s pea plants were model
organisms.
b. Identify three traits of the pea plants that Mendel studied.
c. Through the use of monohybrid crosses, Mendel developed four
hypotheses: alternative forms of genes are called alleles, all organisms
have two alleles, and there are dominant and recessive alleles, and the
Law of Segregation. Define the Law of Segregation and explain how a
Punnett Square can be used to depict this law.
3. Pedigrees are useful for tracing the patterns of inheritance within a family.
Use the pedigree below to answer the following questions. Assume the trait
being examined is albinism, which is a recessive disorder.
a. Identify the phenotypes and genders of the parents in the first generation.
b. How many of the offspring in generation II are albino? In generation III?
c. If individual 4 from generation III reproduces with a homozygous normal
individual, what is the probability their offspring will be albino?
4. Charles Darwin proposed that evolution by natural selection was the basis
for the differences that he saw in similar organisms as he traveled and
collected specimens in South America and on the Galapagos Islands.
a. Explain the theory of evolution by natural selection as presented by
Darwin.
b. Explain the following aspects of evolution by natural selection:
i. Natural selection and the formation of antibiotic-resistant
bacteria
ii. Natural selection and the heterozygote advantage.
5. Four of Darwin’s contributions to the field of evolutionary biology are listed
below:
Comparative anatomy
Comparative embryology
Fossils
Biogeography
a. For each of the four contributions listed above, discuss one example
of supporting evidence.
b. Darwin’s ideas have been enhanced and modified as new
knowledge and technologies have become available. Discuss how the
following have added to Darwin’s original contributions.
Hardy-Weinberg
Punctuated Equilibrium
Molecular biology
6. Evolution is one of the unifying themes of biology. Evolution involves change
in the frequency of alleles in a population. For a particular genetic locus in a
population, the frequency of the recessive allele (a) is 0.4 and the frequency
of the dominant allele (A) is 0.6.
a. What is the frequency of each genotype (AA, Aa, aa) in this
population? What is the frequency of the dominant phenotype?
b. How can the H-W principle of genetic equilibrium be used to
determine
whether this population is evolving?
7. In order for a new species to form, members of a population must become
genetically separated from one another until genes can no longer flow
between them.
a. Identify and explain two methods by which reproductive isolation can
occur.
b. Explain how natural selection is related to speciation.
c. List in order from less specific to most specific the levels of classification
of an organism.
8. Bacteria play central biological roles including producers, parasites,
mutualistic symbionts, and decomposers.
a.
Select three of the ecological roles above. For each one, describe
how bacteria carry out the role and discuss its ecological importance.
b.
Explain how bacteria can be altered to make genetically engineered
products.