Biology Semester 1 Study Guide
The following Gizmos meet the standards assessed by the Biology EOC and should be
reviewed during the first semester:
1. Rabbit Population by Season Gizmo
2. Food Chain Gizmo
3. Photosynthesis Lab Gizmo
Vocabulary to Review:
Trophic Level
Primary Succession
Prokaryote
Primary Consumer
Secondary Succession
Eukaryote
Secondary Consumer
Transpiration
Cell Organelles
Producer
Stomata
Hypotonic and Hypertonic
Limiting factor
Xylem and Phloem
Passive and Active Transport
Energy pyramid
Capillary Action
Chromosome
Carrying capacity
Cohesion and Adhesion
Mitosis and Meiosis
Carbon cycle
Aerobic Respiration
Cancer
Water cycle
Anaerobic Respiration
Sister chromatids
Nitrogen cycle
ATP
Crossing over
Acid rain
Cell Theory
Mutation
Codon
mRNA and tRNA
Questions to Ponder:
1. When you remove an organism from a food web or add an organism to a food web,
what are some consequences that can occur?
There would be far-reaching effects. If a producer is removed, since producers can
capture sunlight directly, then less energy will be captured from the sun and the
organisms that eat that producer may die. If a secondary or tertiary consumer is
removed from a habitat, the primary consumers would overpopulate.
2. Can a population of organisms grow exponentially forever? Why or why not? Give
an example.
No, because eventually a limiting factor would cause the population to stabilize. An
example of a limiting factor that would limit the size of a population is the amount of food
available. Other examples could be amount of land, number of predators,
competition…..
3. Explain this energy pyramid.
At each tropic level in a food chain, energy is used by the organisms at that level to
maintain their own life processes. Because of the 2nd law of energy, some energy is
lost to the surroundings as heat. It is estimated that in going from one tropic level to the
next, about 90 % of the energy is lost. In moving to the next tropic level, only 10 % of
the original energy is available. By the third tropic level only 1% of the energy is
available.
4. Matter cycles and energy flows in one direction. Explain this statement.
Matter must be recycled because there is no new matter created; therefore, carbon,
nitrogen, and water must be recycled so that they can be reused. Energy comes from
the sun and flows in one direction, changing form. However, each time energy changes
from one form to another (ex. Chemical to mechanical) some of it is transferred as heat.
Therefore, we depend on the sun to continually supply us with more energy.
5. Explain what is happening to the population in this graph. What is one reason why
this could be occurring?
This graph is showing a population in exponential growth for the first fifty years and then
due to some limiting factor, the population reaches its carrying capacity and levels off at
about 1.5 million organisms.
6. Carbon must be recycled because new carbon is never made. List the processes
shown in the diagram that can change carbon from one form to another.
#1 Photosynthesis (carbon fixation)
#2 Cellular respiration
#3 Decomposers return carbon dioxide back into atmosphere
#4 Burning of fossil fuels
#5 Cellular respiration
7. Nitrogen is essential in building proteins and nucleic acids in organisms and nitrogen
must be recycled because new nitrogen is never created. Study this diagram and
describe where most of the nitrogen cycle occurs and why.
Since bacteria are the only organisms that can capture atmospheric nitrogen and
convert it into an organic compound, most of the nitrogen cycle happens in the soil.
8. What are some human actions that have caused many animals to become
endangered on our planet? What can we do to counteract these negative actions?
There are many answers to this question; here are just some examples.
Negative Action
Possible remedy
Strengthen Endangered Species Act
Overhunting
Protecting and restoring habitats
Habitat Loss
Use of native plants and animals;
Invasion of non-native species
9. Compare and contrast primary and secondary succession in a Venn diagram.
Primary
Slower
Lichens must create soil first
Starting a new community
Secondary
Faster
Soil already present
Rebuilding a community
Similarities
Building of a community
Replaces older vegetation with larger plants (trees)
10. What process is occurring in this diagram? What properties of water make this
process possible?
This diagram is showing the process of transpiration. Water properties such as
cohesion and adhesion allow water to be pulled up the plant.
11. What environmental factors could speed up or show down the process shown in
#10?
Environmental factors such as higher temperatures, wind, and increased light intensity
can increase the rate of transpiration.
12. Write the two formulas for photosynthesis and cellular respiration. Circle the
reactants in photosynthesis and put a square about the products for cellular
respiration. How do they compare?
The reactants of photosynthesis are the products of cellular respiration.
13. Compare/contrast aerobic and anaerobic respiration.
Commonalities
Differences
Both produce ATP.
Aerobic needs oxygen and anaerobic
respiration occurs when no oxygen is
present.
Both break down glucose.
Both are types of respiration.
Aerobic respiration is much more efficient
and produces a lot more ATP than anaerobic.
Aerobic occurs in the mitochondria and
anaerobic occurs in the cytoplasm.
14. Fill in the table comparing prokaryotes vs. eukaryotes.
Prokaryote
Nucleus present?
No
Eukaryote
Yes
Prokaryote
Eukaryote
DNA present?
Yes
Yes
Cytoplasm present?
Yes
Yes
Cell membrane present?
Yes
Yes
Cell wall present?
Sometimes
In plants and fungus
Membrane-bound
organelles
No
Yes
15. What type of cell is shown to the right? How do you know?
This is a plant cell; it has a square shape, chloroplasts, and starch grains.
Make sure that you review the parts of the cell and that you know what job each part of
the cell is responsible for.
16.
What is this an image of?
This is a cell membrane.
What is its primary role?
Its primary role is to allow certain materials to come in and out of cells.
What macromolecule is it made of?
It is composed of a phospholipid bilayer with embedded proteins.
17. A. Label each of the three beakers as hypotonic, hypertonic, or isotonic.
B. Explain what happens to the cell placed in each of the three beakers.
Beaker 1- Isotonic; the cell stays the same size because water is entering and exiting
the cell at the same rate. It is at equilibrium.
Beaker 2: The solution is hypotonic. Water will enter the cell and cause it to swell.
Beaker 3: The solution is hypertonic. Water will leave the cell and the cell will shrivel.
18. Use evidence from the diagram to explain the differences between passive and
active transport.
Passive transport is the movement of molecules in or out of a cell from an area of high
concentration to an area of low concentration without the use of energy. Examples of
this are diffusion and facilitated diffusion. Active transport is the movement of
molecules against the concentration gradient and therefore takes energy to do this;
evidence of this is the ATP that you see needed for active transport in the diagram.
19. Why must DNA be replicated?
DNA must be replicated so that the new cells generated will have the same amount of
DNA as the parent cell. DNA is replicated during interphase before the cell undergoes
mitosis.
20. This diagram shows sexual vs asexual reproduction. Explain three major
differences between these two processes.
Asexual reproduction can only have one parent; sexual reproduction needs two parents
to make an offspring.
Asexual reproduction produces offspring with exact DNA as the parent verses sexual
reproduction produces offspring with genetic variations.
Asexual occurs when an animal grows to a certain age and splits into 2 copies of itself.
Sexual reproduction allows variation in a species while asexual is just exact copies of
the parent.
Sexual reproduction uses meiosis while asexual uses mitosis
Asexual reproduction usually occurs in more simple-celled creatures while sexual
occurs with most complex creatures (ex humans, dogs, etc)
21. How do the daughter cells compare to the parent cell after mitosis has occurred?
Give an example.
Daughter cells are identical copies of the parent cell. An example is a skin cell making
two more skin cells exactly like it.
22. Fill in the table comparing mitosis and meiosis.
Mitosis
Number of
divisions?
1
Meiosis
2
Mitosis
Meiosis
Diploid or Haploid
daughter cells?
Diploid
Haploid
Crossing over
occurs?
No
Yes
Genetically identical Identical
or different
daughter cells?
Different
23. Environmental and genetic factors can cause cancer. What is cancer? What goes
wrong in the cells?
Cancer is uncontrolled cell growth. Cancer occurs when the cell cycle is no longer
regulated and cells are growing without control. A tumor, or mass of cells, formed of
these abnormal cells may remain within the tissue in which it, or it may begin to invade
nearby tissues. An invasive tumor is said to be malignant, and cells shed into the blood
or lymph from a malignant tumor are likely to establish new tumors (metastases)
throughout the body.
24. The following karyotype shows the chromosomes for a person with Down
Syndrome. What happened during cell division that would cause this to occur?
Down syndrome is caused by a random error in cell division that results in the
presence of an extra copy of chromosome 21. The type of error is called
nondisjunction. Usually when one cell divides in two, pairs of chromosomes are split
so that one of the pair goes to one cell, and the other from the pair goes to the other
cell. In nondisjunction, something goes wrong and both chromosomes from one pair
go into one cell and no chromosomes for that pair go into the other cell.
25. Describe what occurs during the following types of mutations:
A. deletion- is a mutation in which a part of a chromosome or a sequence of DNA is
missing
B. insertion- is the addition of one or more nucleotide base pairs into a DNA sequence
C. nondisjunction- is the failure of homologous chromosome or sister chromatids to
separate properly during cell division.
D. Translocation- A chromosome alteration in which a whole chromosome or segment
of a chromosome becomes attached to or interchanged with another whole
chromosome
26. Write the complementary strand of RNA to this DNA template strand.
DNA:
TAGGAATTTTTG
RNA:
AUCCUUAAAAAC
27. This diagram shows the process of protein synthesis. Describe what is happening
at each of the major steps.
A. Transcription is occurring- DNA is being copied into messenger RNA.
B. mRNA is being modified before its leaves the nucleus and is transported to the
ribosome.
C. Translation is occurring- the mRNA is being read by the ribosome. The three letter
codons are being paired up with anti-codons on the tRNA, which are bringing amino
acids together to create a chain of amino acids. This chain of amino acids will then be
folded into a protein.
28. The following codon chart can figure out which amino acid is represented by which
codon. Use the table to figure out which amino acids would be represented by the
mRNA chain.
mRNA: A U G C A G G C A U U A
amino acids: met pro ala leu