STUDY GUIDE Charact of living things, The Sci Method, Principles of Marine Sci
Recommendations to follow:
1.
Answers are thought to be short in most of the cases
2.
Try as much as you can to connect the terms and understand the association between some of the concepts, to get
the whole picture about the topic. Memorizing alone can give you probably around a 70/100 in the exam, but some
questions always require connecting two or more ideas to come up with a short and precise answer.
3.
If you know most of these review questions you should do fine in the test, questions in the test will be variations of
the same themes covered in these questions.
Introduction:
Characteristics of living things and Levels of organization
1. Explain the main characteristics that define something as living or non-living. You should be familiar with
the following terms (Handouts)

Cells and structural organization, metabolic processes (nutrient uptake and processing, waste
elimination), generative processes (growth and reproduction), responsive processes (sensitivity), and
control processes (regulation and coordination = homeostasis)
The Scientific Method
2. Sketch the main components of the scientific method
3. The Scientific Method cannot be used to deny or prove the existence of God. Why? What is this hypothesis
first missing according to the scientific method?
4. Why is political science not a science, what part of the scientific method fails here?
5. How does a hypothesis differ from a scientific theory or a scientific law?
6. What does it mean when a variable is said to dependent or independent in an experiment? Which one is the
X, which one the Y? Which one will show on each axis of a graph?
7. What are controlled experiments?
8. Why is necessary to repeat an experiment many times to firmly support a hypothesis even if the first result
fully supported it ?
Chapter 1: Principles of marine science
9. What percent of the Earth is covered by water?
10. Why is the marine environment a “good one” for most living organisms?
11. Oceanography is the science mainly connected with marine biology. List the different branches of this
science and the main scope of each branch
12. Name and explain the use of two inventions that dramatically changed the possibility of studying the marine
environment. In what decade did these instruments appeared?
13. List some present technologies apart of those mentioned in question 8 that are used to do research in the
oceans
Marine Biology
Instructor: Jose Bava, Ph.D