BIOLOGY CONTENT STANDARDS REVIEW
CELL BIOLOGY
The fundamental life processes of plants and animals depend on a variety of chemical reactions that occur in
specialized areas of the organism's cells. As a basis for understanding this concept:
Students know cells are enclosed within semi-permeable membranes that regulate their interaction with their
surroundings.
1. Draw the structure of the cell membrane and label its parts.
2. Explain the processes of diffusion and osmosis.
Students know enzymes are proteins that catalyze biochemical reactions without altering the reaction
equilibrium and the activities of enzymes depend on the temperature, ionic conditions, and the pH of the
surroundings.
3. Explain how an enzyme works (use the terms active site, substrate, and products).
4. Explain how pH and temperature affect enzyme activity (i.e., environmental factors).
Students know the role of the Endoplasmic Reticulum and Golgi Apparatus in the secretion of proteins.
5. Describe the function of the E.R. and Golgi Appartus.
6. Explain how the E.R. and Golgi Apparatus relate to protein synthesis.
Students know the central dogma of molecular biology outlines the flow of information from transcription of
ribonucleic acid (RNA) in the nucleus to translation of proteins on ribosomes in the cytoplasm.
7. Explain how the cell creates a protein from the code in DNA (i.e., protein synthesis).
Students know how prokaryotic cells, eukaryotic cells (including those from plants and animals), and viruses
differ in complexity and general structure.
8. Explain how prokaryotic cells, eukaryotic cells, and viruses differ.
Students know usable energy is captured from sunlight by chloroplasts and is stored through the synthesis of
sugar from carbon dioxide.
9. Describe the process of photosynthesis and write its equation.
Students know the role of the mitochondria in making stored chemical-bond energy available to cells by
completing the breakdown of glucose to carbon dioxide.
10. Define cellular respiration and write its equation. How does ATP relate to cellular respiration?
Students know most macromolecules (carbohydrates, nucleic acids, proteins, lipids) in cells and organisms are
synthesized from a small collection of simple precursors.
11. Compare and contrast carbohydrates, nucleic acids, proteins, and lipids.
12. What are the monomers that makeup the polymers in the question above?
BIOLOGY CONTENT STANDARDS REVIEW
GENETICS
Mutation and sexual reproduction lead to genetic variation in a population. As a basis for understanding this
concept:
Students know meiosis is an early step in sexual reproduction in which the pairs of chromosomes separate and
segregate randomly during cell division to produce gametes containing one chromosome of each type.
Students know how random chromosome segregation explains the probability that a particular allele will be in
a gamete.
1.
Draw and label the steps of meiosis. Be sure to show alleles on chromosomes and how they randomly
segregate.
2. How do diploid and haploid cells differ?
3. Explain crossing over.
Students know only certain cells in a multicellular organism undergo meiosis.
4. Identify cells in the human body that are haploid. How many chromosomes would be present?
5. Identify cells in the body that are diploid. How many chromosomes are present?
Students know new combinations of alleles may be generated in a zygote through the fusion of male and
female gametes (fertilization). Students know why approximately half of an individual's DNA sequence comes
from each parent. Students know the role of chromosomes in determining an individual's sex.
6. What can be discovered about an embryo based on information found in a karyotype?
Students know the genetic basis for Mendel's laws of Segregation and Independent Assortment.
7. Describe Mendel’s contribution to biology.
8. Explain Mendel’s laws of Segregation and Independent Assortment.
A multicellular organism develops from a single zygote, and its phenotype depends on its genotype, which is
established at fertilization. As a basis for understanding this concept:
Students know how to predict the probable outcome of phenotypes in a genetic cross from the genotypes of
the parents and mode of inheritance (autosomal or X-linked, dominant or recessive).
9.
Describe an organism’s genotype and phenotype.
10.
Describe dominant and recessive traits.
11.
Describe autosomal and sex linked traits.
Students know how to predict possible combinations of alleles in a zygote from the genetic makeup of the
parents.
12.
Explain what Punnet squares are used for.
13.
Draw a Punnet square with an autosomal trait. Give the genotypic and phenotypic ratios.
14.
Draw a Punnet square with a sex-linked trait. Give the phenotypic ratio.
Genes are a set of instructions encoded in the DNA sequence of each organism that specify the sequence of amino
acids in proteins characteristic of that organism. As a basis for understanding this concept:
Students know the general structures and functions of DNA, RNA, and protein.
15.
Draw and label a DNA molecule (with five base pairs), an RNA molecule, and a protein molecule.
Students know how to apply base-pairing rules to explain precise copying of DNA during semi-conservative
replication and transcription of information from DNA into mRNA. Students know the general pathway by
which ribosomes synthesize proteins, using tRNAs to translate genetic information in mRNA.
16.
Describe DNA replication.
17.
Describe transcription and translation (include the terms nucleus, cytoplasm, DNA, mRNA, rRNA,
tRNA, ribosome, codon, anticodon, and amino acids).
Students know how to apply the genetic coding rules to predict the sequence of amino acids from a sequence
of codons in RNA. Students know proteins can differ from one another in the number and sequence of amino
acids.
18.
Explain what the mRNA table is and describe its relationship with amino acids and proteins. How are
individual proteins alike and different (e.g., hemoglobin vs. insulin)?
Students know how mutations in the DNA sequence of a gene may or may not affect the expression of the
gene or the sequence of amino acids in an encoded protein.
19.
How do DNA sequence mutations differ from chromosomal mutations?
The genetic composition of cells can be altered by incorporation of exogenous DNA into the cells. As a basis for
understanding this concept:
Students know how genetic engineering (biotechnology) is used to produce novel biomedical and agricultural
products.
20.
How is biotechnology used to produce medical and agricultural products. Be sure to provide examples!
BIOLOGY CONTENT STANDARDS REVIEW
ECOLOGY
Stability in an ecosystem is a balance between competing effects. As a basis for understanding this concept:
Students know biodiversity is the sum total of different kinds of organisms and is affected by alterations of
habitats.
1.
How does biodiversity relate to the stability of a community of living things?
2. Compare and contrast habitat and niche.
3. Describe biotic and abiotic factors that can affect a community of living things?
Students know how to analyze changes in an ecosystem resulting from changes in climate, human activity,
introduction of nonnative species, or changes in population size.
4. Describe how changes in climate, human activity, population fluctuations, and/or introduction of nonnative species may affect the stability of an ecosystem.
Students know how fluctuations in population size in an ecosystem are determined by the relative rates of
birth, immigration, emigration, and death.
5. Define emigration, immigration, birth rate (natality), and death rate (mortality).
6. Explain how emigration and immigration affect the growth of a population.
7. Explain how birth and death rate affect the growth of a population.
Students know how water, carbon, and nitrogen cycle between abiotic resources and organic matter in the
ecosystem and how oxygen cycles through photosynthesis and respiration.
8. Draw and label the water cycle, carbon cycle, oxygen cycle, and nitrogen cycle.
Students know a vital part of an ecosystem is the stability of its producers and decomposers.
9.
What do producers contribute to their community and its stability?
10.
What do decomposers contribute to their community and its stability?
Students know at each link in a food web some energy is stored in newly made structures but much energy is
dissipated into the environment as heat. This dissipation may be represented in an energy pyramid.
11.
Draw a food web that links at least 5 populations (include at least one producer, consumer, and
decomposer).
12.
Draw a food energy pyramid that represents four types of organisms and explain what happens to the
energy as it moves up the pyramid. Explain why energy is not fully transferred from one population to
the next (remember the 10% rule!).
13.
Why is the pyramid shape an effective way to represent a community of living things?
BIOLOGY CONTENT STANDARDS REVIEW
EVOLUTION
The frequency of an allele in a gene pool of a population depends on many factors and may be stable or unstable
over time. As a basis for understanding this concept:
Students know why alleles that are lethal in a homozygous individual may be carried in a heterozygote and
thus maintained in a gene pool.
1. Compare and contrast the terms homozygous and heterozygous.
2. Explain how lethal alleles are maintained in a gene pool (e.g., Tay Sachs disease).
Students know variation within a species increases the likelihood that at least some members of a species will
survive under changed environmental conditions.
3. What is genetic variation?
4. Explain how genetic variation is essential when it comes to the survival of a population.
Evolution is the result of genetic changes that occur in constantly changing environments. As a basis for
understanding this concept:
Students know how natural selection determines the differential survival of groups of organisms.
5. What is Natural Selection? How does Natural Selection work?
6. Does Natural Selection work on a phenotype or genotype?
7. What is selective pressure and how does it relate to Natural Selection?
Students know a great diversity of species increases the chance that at least some organisms survive major
changes in the environment.
8. Explain how variation within a species increases the chance that some organisms would survive a major
environmental change (i.e., selective pressure). Provide at least one example.
Students know the effects of genetic drift on the diversity of organisms in a population.
9.
What is genetic drift? How does genetic drift relate to biological evolution?
Students know reproductive or geographic isolation affects speciation.
10.
Define geographic isolation, reproductive isolation, species, and speciation.
terms/processes relate?
How do these
Students know how to analyze fossil evidence with regard to biological diversity, episodic speciation, and
mass extinction
11.
12.
What is a fossil? How are fossils formed?
Explain how the fossil record provides evidence of biological diversity (that existed in the past),
episodic speciation, and mass extinction.
BIOLOGY CONTENT STANDARDS REVIEW
PHYSIOLOGY
As a result of the coordinated structures and functions of organ systems, the internal environment of the human
body remains relatively stable (homeostatic) despite changes in the outside environment. As a basis for
understanding the concept:
Students know how the complementary activity of major body systems provides cells with oxygen and
nutrients and removes toxic waste products such as carbon dioxide.
1.
Describe the function of the circulatory, respiratory, digestive and excretory systems.
Students know how the nervous system mediates communication between different parts of the body and
the body’s interactions with the environment.
2. Describe the function of the nervous system.
3. Outline the path a nerve impulse takes when responding to an environmental stimulus (e.g., you burn your
finger on a hot pan).
Students know how feedback loops in the nervous and endocrine systems regulate conditions in the body.
4. What are feedback loops? Provide at least one example.
5. Define homeostasis. How does the body maintain homeostasis?
Students know the functions of the nervous system and the role of neurons in transmitting electrochemical
impulses.
6. Draw and label a nerve cell (i.e., neuron) and describe the way in which neurons transmit impulses.
Students know the roles of sensory neurons, interneurons, and motor neurons in the sensation, thought, and
response.
7. Compare and contrast sensory neurons, interneurons, and motor neurons.
Organisms have a variety of mechanisms to combat disease. As a basis for understanding human immune response:
Students know the role of skin in providing nonspecific defenses against infection.
8. How does the skin provide nonspecific defenses against infection?
Students know the role of antibodies in the body’s response to infection.
9. What are antibodies and how do they help the body fight infection?
Students know how vaccination protects an individual from infectious diseases.
10. Explain how vaccinations protect an individual from infectious disease (i.e., pathogens).
Students know there are important differences between bacteria and viruses with respect to their
requirements for growth and replication, the body’s primary defenses against bacterial and viral infections,
and effective treatments of these infections.
11. Explain how bacteria and viruses reproduce. How does the body defend itself against bacteria and
viruses?
Students know why an individual with a compromised immune system (for example, a person with AIDS) may
be unable to fight off and survive infections by microorganisms that are usually benign.
12. Why can’t a person infected with HIV, who shows signs of AIDS, fight off infections?