Study Guide for AP Biology Mid-term
Biochemistry
1. What is responsible for water's unique properties?
2. Why is ATP a common energy source for organisms?
3. What factors affect the rate of an enzyme mediated reaction?
4. How do enzymes affect biochemical reactions?
Cell Unit
1. What type of cell contains only circular chromosomes?
2. What environmental conditions can decrease photosynthetic yield?
3. The most ATP is made during which part of aerobic respiration?
4. Why would club soda cause a plant to grow bigger?
5. Metabolic process common in aerobic respiration and alcoholic fermentation
6. How are simple diffusion and facilitated diffusion related?
7. Functions and events of mitosis
8. Evidence that mitochondria are descendents of bacteria cells
9. Structure of the cell membrane
10. Which component is responsible for active transport?
11. The main function of water in photophosphorylation is?
12. Which pathway for the transformation of cellular energy most likely evolved first?
13. What two substances are made during the light-dependent reactions and are used to
power the Calvin cycle?
14. What would happen to animal cells placed in pure water?
15. What conditions are necessary for diffusion to occur?
16. Features common in eukaryotes and prokaryotes
17. Which two cellular organelles have both electron transport systems and chemiosmotic
mechanisms?
18. Characteristic organelles of a plant cell
19. Stages of the cell cycle – relative lengths of the stages
Meiosis/Genetics/DNA
1. Describe the cells that result from meiosis.
2. Incomplete dominance
3. Sex-linked traits
4. Why can a gene from a firefly be expressed in a tobacco plant?
5. Describe the parents of a test cross
6. Wobble effect in tRNAs/codons
7. Why do bacteria shut down an operon if material is not available in the environment?
8. Enzymes used in genetic engineering
9. Pedigrees
Evolution
1. Examples of prezygotic isolating mechanisms
2. Darwin's concept of evolution
3. How is evolution fitness measured?
4. Modern concept of biological species
5. Hardy-Weinberg – given the homozygous recessive percentage, what is the frequency of
the recessive allele?
6. Hardy-Weinberg conditions
7. What do p, q, etc represent for Hardy-Weinberg?
8. 3 types of selection – directional, stabilizing, disruptive
9. protocells
10. Consequences of free oxygen in atmosphere
11. General order of events in the history of Earth
12. Cladogram
AP Labs
1. Photosynthesis
2. Enzymes
3. Diffusion/osmosis (potato cores)
4. Meiosis
5. Bacterial transformation
Essay topics
1. Base-pair mutations and the consequences to the protein produced. (sickle cell would be a
good example)
2. Photosynthesis – how is paper chromatography used to separate pigments? Role of
pigments is capturing and converting light energy? Calculating Rf value