AP Biology Study Guide for Ch. 1-4: Exploring Life
August 2013
This is your first Study Guide for AP Biology! I am giving you a copy of this first Study Guide, but will
expect you to download future Study Guides from my Teacher Page, so please visit the site and
familiarize yourself with what is available to you there. (Caution: do not download Study Guides until
they are updated to the current school year – 2013!) You will need to download the “Reading Guides”
for Chapters 1-4 as soon as possible, so that you can start reading the chapters and filling out the Guides.
This will be your homework, along with the “Learning Targets” and “Key Vocabulary” below. It
probably seems like a lot of work (and it is!), but if you are organized and budget your time, YOU CAN
DO IT! You must shoulder the responsibility of reading and learning this information. Be organized
BEFORE the exam: buy or make yourself a daily planner and keep track of when you’re going to work
on assignments, read the textbook, update your AP Biology Notebook, make and study flash cards, read
and later reread handouts, etc. The most successful students study four or five hours per week. In
college the formula is that each hour of class time equals two hours of study time! Wow!
Chapter 1 in your book is an introduction to the major themes in biology. The information should be a
review.
Chapters 2 & 3 are reviews of basic chemistry and the structure and special properties of water. Luckily,
we don’t have to know a whole lot of chemistry to do well in AP Biology, but the information in these
chapters is essential, so make sure you master it. ELT provides a great opportunity to come in and work
on topics if you are confused!! “Work together” on this by quizzing each other with flashcards. If you
haven’t taken chemistry, find a “buddy” who has and let him/her explain concepts to you—he or she
will benefit from teaching you the material and you will probably find out that chemistry isn’t so hard
after all!
Chapter 4 is very short, but also very important because without understanding Chapter 4, you won’t be
able to understand Chapter 5, which is SUPER IMPORTANT! Here we go with the memorization: you
must KNOW (i.e. be able to recognize a picture of and name OR be able to sketch if given the name) the
structures of a hydrocarbon (methane, ethane) and all of the functional groups on pp. 64-65.
Chapters 2, 3 & 4 in your book are what the College Board refers to as “underlying content.” It won’t be
on the AP Exam, but it is necessary in order to understand a particular required concept.
I. SCHEDULE 2013 for Chapters 1-4
Monday (8/26)
Tues
*Welcome to AP
*Pre-lab Investigation
Biology!
12-Animal Behavior
*Hand out: Lab Safety
HWK:Bring rolieRules/Contract,
polies on block day
Academic Honesty
next week!!!!
Code, College Board
*Lecture Ch. 1
Outline, Study Guide
Ch. 1-4
Wed
*Lab-M&M Statistics-A Chi
Square Analysis
*Set up website access
Fri
*Lab Safety Test
*Lecture Ch. 1
1
Monday (9/2)
*LABOR DAYNO SCHOOL!
Tues
*Lecture Ch. 2
Wed
*Investigation 12-Animal
Behavior (Pre-lab DUE!)
Monday (9/9)
*Lecture Ch. 2
Tues
*Lecture Ch. 3
Wed
*Lecture Ch. 3 & 4
*FRQ DUE
*Assign FRQ (due 9/18)
*ELT Review Thursday
Fri
*Finish
Investigation 12Animal Behavior
& assign due date
*Assign FRQ (due
9/11)
Fri
*Exam Ch. 1-4
*Packet DUE
*Download Study
Guide and
Reading Guide
Ch. 5
II. KEEP IN MIND
1. The Chapter 1-4 Packet will consist of your completed Ch. 1-4 Reading Guides and your completed
Learning Targets (below), and your “Fred & Theresa Guides” which we will complete in class. All of
this work must be done in YOUR handwriting; no word-processed work will be accepted. Feel free to
“re-do” your Learning Targets or any other assignments by word processing them if that helps you to
learn, but I will only collect hand-written work. You should make flashcards of the Key Vocabulary and
STUDY them until they are MEMORIZED. I will collect and grade your flashcards on the day of the test.
2. FLASHCARDS are the most awesome thing ever invented by humankind!! If you haven’t started
using flashcards yet, get with the program now! Flashcards are used by successful college students and
are essential to success in a college biology course. Medical students are notorious for making complex
sets of flashcards to memorize all of the detailed anatomy, pharmacology, pathology, etc. that they are
required to know.
3. Your “Packet” work is worth points, BUT this is not the main reason you should do your work! You
should do this work FOR YOURSELF! You should do this work so that you will learn this material and
succeed on the test. Don’t do this work for points, do it for YOUR learning! DO NOT CHEAT on these
assignments by copying other students’ work or by splitting up the assignments and then copying! IT’S
NOT WORTH IT and you will not do well in this class.
4. Your Learning Targets will often have more than one part or question to answer or explain or
describe. Be sure to answer ALL PARTS of the Learning Targets thoroughly, because they are ALL
important. I promise I won’t give you busy work; all of your Key Vocabulary and Learning Targets are
things you MUST KNOW in order to succeed in AP Biology.
5. It would be a good thing (but not required) to make flashcards of the Word Roots I have given you
(below). Memorizing the meaning of these roots will help you in this class and will probably make your
English teachers really happy, too!
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III. KEY VOCABULARY Chapter 1
bioinformatics
controlled experiment
ecosystem
emergent properties
hypothesis
population
reductionism
biosphere
data
domain Archaea
eukaryotic cell
inductive reasoning
positive feedback
system
community
deductive reasoning
domain Bacteria
gene
inquiry
producer
systems biology
consumer
deoxyribonucleic acid
domain Eukarya
genome
negative feedback
prokaryotic cell
theory
bio- life (biology: the scientific study of life; biosphere: all the environments on
Earth that are inhabited by life; bioinformatics: using information technology
to extract useful information from large sets of biological data)
eu- true (eukaryotic cell: a cell that has a true nucleus)
-ell small (organelle: a small, formed body with a specialized function found in
the cytoplasm of eukaryotic cells)
pro- before; karyo- nucleus (prokaryotic cell: a cell that has no nucleus)
IV. LEARNING TARGETS Chapter 1
Exploring Life on Its Many Levels
1. 1. Diagram the hierarchy of structural levels in biological organization.
1.2. Distinguish between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells.
1.3. Describe the basic structure and function of DNA.
1.4. Explain the importance of regulatory mechanisms in living things. Distinguish between positive and
negative feedback.
Evolution, Unity, and Diversity
1.5. Explain the phrase “life’s dual nature of unity and diversity.”
1.6. Describe the observations and inferences that led Charles Darwin to his theory of evolution by
natural selection.
1.7. Explain why diagrams of evolutionary relationships have a treelike form.
The Process of Science
1.8 . What is inquiry and how does it relate to the process of science?
1.9. Distinguish between quantitative and qualitative data.
1.10. Distinguish between inductive and deductive reasoning.
1.11. Explain why hypotheses must be testable and falsifiable but are not provable
1.12. Describe what is meant by a controlled experiment.
1.13. Distinguish between the everyday meaning of the term theory and its meaning to scientists.
V. KEY VOCABULARY Chapters 2 & 3
atom
proton
atomic number
isotope
orbital
ion
atomic nucleus
neutron
mass number
electron
half-life
ionic bond
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electrostatic attraction
ionization
acid
pH
nonpolar covalent bond
electronegativity
hydrophobic
van der Waals interactions
surface tension
heat capacity
Word roots:
valence
molecule
base
buffer
polar covalent bond
hydrogen bond
hydrophobic interactions
hydrophilic
capillarity
heat of vaporization
an- = not (anion: a negatively charged ion)
co- = together; -valent = strength (covalent bond: an attraction between atoms that share
one or more pairs of outer-shell electrons)
electro- = electricity (electronegativity: the tendency for an atom to pull electrons
towards itself)
iso- = equal (isotope: an element having the same number of protons and electrons but a
different number of neutrons)
neutr- = neither (neutron: a subatomic particle with a neutral electrical charge)
pro- = before (proton: a subatomic particle with a single positive electrical charge)
VI. LEARNING TARGETS Chapters 2 & 3
2.1. Describe and diagram the structure of an atom, using the terms proton, neutron, electron, mass number
(atomic mass), and orbital. Indicate what is meant by electrons in an "excited state" and those in a "ground
state."
2.2. Explain what an isotope is and give two important physical properties of isotopes that make them useful for
biological research. Describe what is meant by the "half-life" of a radioactive isotope.
2.3. Using diagrams, explain what an ion is, and how it forms. Describe an ionic bond. Indicate whether, and
why or why not, sodium chloride exists as a molecule when in solution..
2.4. Describe a covalent bond and explain how it differs from an ionic bond. Relate the structure of an atom to its
chemical properties and the type of chemical bond it forms.
2.5. Using diagrams, explain the difference between nonpolar covalent bonds and polar covalent bonds. In a
molecule like the following, indicate which of the bonds marked by arrows are polar covalent bonds and
which are nonpolar covalent bonds.
H
|
H-C-O-H
|
H-C-H
|
H
2.6. Indicate why the inorganic molecules O2 and CO2 are basic to life, and name the principal source of each of
these molecules.
2.7. Explain the crucial role of weak chemical bonds (such as hydrogen bonds, van der Waals interactions, and
hydrophobic interactions) in the organization of living materials.
3.1. Describe the special physical properties of water. In doing so, draw two water molecules in a way that
illustrates a hydrogen bond; specify the number of hydrogen bonds a single water molecule can form with
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other water molecules in ice; explain why water is a good solvent for ionic and polar compounds, but not for
hydrophobic substances; and show the basis for the high surface tension of water and for capillarity.
3.2. Explain what is meant by pH. Specify the pH of the material within most living cells and indicate whether this
is acidic or basic. Describe what happens if the pH changes appreciably from this value. Give the name
used for compounds that resist changes in pH. Describe how buffers work and give an example of a buffer
system.
VII. KEY VOCABULARY Chapter 4
hydrocarbon
functional group
Word Roots
isomer
amino group
carb- coal (carboxyl group: a functional group present in organic acids,
consisting of a carbon atom double-bonded to an oxygen atom and a hydroxyl
group)
enanti- opposite (enantiomer: molecules that are mirror images of each other)
hydro- water (hydrocarbon: an organic molecule consisting only of carbon and
hydrogen)
iso- equal (isomer: one of several organic compounds with the same molecular
formula but different structures and, therefore, different properties)
sulf- sulfur (sulfhydryl group: a functional group that consists of a sulfur atom
bonded to an atom of hydrogen)
thio- sulfur (thiol: organic compounds containing sulfhydryl groups
con- together (condensation reaction: a reaction in which two molecules
become covalently bonded to each other through the loss of a small
molecule, usually water)
di- two (disaccharide: two monosaccharides joined together)
glyco- sweet (glycogen: a polysaccharide sugar used to store energy in animals)
hydro- water; -lyse 5 break (hydrolysis: breaking chemical bonds by adding water)
macro- large (macromolecule: a large molecule)
meros- part (polymer: a chain made from smaller organic molecules)
mono- single; -sacchar 5 sugar (monosaccharide: simplest type of sugar)
poly- many (polysaccharide: many monosaccharides joined together)
tri- three (triacylglycerol: three fatty acids linked to one glycerol molecule)
VIII. LEARNING TARGETS Chapter 4
4.1. Name and diagram the functional groups listed in Table 4.10 (pp. 65-66). Indicate whether each group
is charged, polar, or nonpolar, and whether it is hydrophilic or hydrophobic.
4.2. Define isomer and distinguish between the three types of isomers: structural isomers, geometric
isomers, and enantiomers.
4.3. Describe the role of phosphate groups in the function of ATP.
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