AP Biology study guide 2013
Name ____________________________________
Chapter 1 and Experimental Design
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What are the properties of life?
What are the Four Big Ideas of Biology?
What is the core theme of biology?
How is biology examined?
What is a hypothesis? What makes a good hypothesis?
What are the two types of data?
What are the two types of reasoning?
What is the scientific method? What are its parts?
What are the two major types of cells? What’s the difference between them?
What are the characteristics of DNA? What is its structure and function?
What type of cells falls under each domain?
Distinguish between positive and negative feedback.
What is the level of classification or organisms from greatest to smallest?
Be able to distinguish between independent and dependent variables.
Chapter 3
1. How are various water molecules bonded to each other?
2. What are the four properties of water? How is each one explained or created? (i.e. cohesion is explained by the
unique hydrogen bonding of molecules)
3. What is the difference between acids and bases?
4. Know how to read a pH scale as a logarithmic scale. And to determine which substances are strong/weak based
on their pH.
5. Acids contain more ____________________ than bases. What do bases contain more of? What about neutral
substances?
6. What is a buffer? Why are they important?
7. What is the difference between hydrophobic and hydrophilic substances in their behavior and composition?
What are specific substances that are hydrophobic?
8. What side of the water molecule is negatively charged?
Chapter 4
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What is organic chemistry?
Organic molecules are centered around what element?
What are the bonding properties of carbon?
What are isomers? What is the difference between geometric and structural isomers?
What are enantiomers?
Know the functional groups found on p. 64-65 in your book.
Which groups contain nitrogen?
Which groups are found in amino acids?
What is the difference between a ketone and an aldehyde? What functional group are they?
Chapter 5
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What is a monomer? What is a polymer?
How are polymers formed? What happens during this reaction?
How are polymers broken apart? What happens during this reaction?
What are the monomers of carbohydrates? What is their chemical formula?
Name your common monosaccharides, disaccharides, and polysaccharides and know where they are found.
What is the difference between saturated and nonsaturated fats?
What is a phospholipid composed of? What is a triglyceride composed of?
What are the monomers of proteins polymers?
What type of bond forms between 2 amino acids?
What are nucleotides made of?
Which bases are purines and which are pyrimidines?
Chapter 6
1. What are the differences between light microcopy and electron microscopy?
2. What are the differences between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells?
3. Know the functions of smooth and rough ER, chloroplasts, lysosome, peroxisome, cytoskeleton, ribosomes,
mitochondria, vacuole
4. What are the two sides of the golgi body? What is the difference between them? What does the golgi body do?
5. What is the difference between free and bound ribosomes?
6. What organelle would help with detoxification processes?
7. Which organelles in the cell contain DNA?
8. What is unique about the internal membrane of the mitochondria?
9. What is the cytoskeleton composed of?
10. Explain the 9+2 arrangement of microtubules and where it is found.
Chapter 7
1. What were the theories about the structure of the phospholipid bilayer? Who was credited with each theory?
2. What are the major structural components of cell membranes?
3. Be able to work lots of hypotonic, hypertonic, and isotonic problems. Some questions will ask for the solution
and some will ask for the cell.
4. What is plasmolysis?
5. What are the types of passive transport? What are the types of active transport? What is the difference
between passive and active transport?
6. What are the difference/similarities between facilitated diffusion and active transport such as the
sodium/potassium pump?
7. Describe the workings of the sodium potassium pump in detail. What does it help to create?
8. Explain endocytosis and exocytosis. What are the types of endocytosis?
Chapter 8
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What is the difference between catabolism and anabolism?
What are the two laws of thermodynamics?
What is an open system?
What chemical reactions have a positive ΔG? Which have a negative ΔG?
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What is ATP? What is its structure? How is it different than a nucleotide?
What happens to the heat generated when work is done?
What does a catalyst do? What group of polymers are common catalysts?
What is activation energy? How is it related to enzymes?
Explain how reactions are coupled.
What is the active site of an enzyme?
Be able to differentiate between substrate, enzyme, and product if given an experiment.
Explain the difference between competitive and noncompetitive inhibitors? What do they do to a enzyme
reaction?
Chapter 9
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Explain oxidation and reduction reactions.
In respiration, is glucose oxidized or reduced?
Where does glycolysis occur?
Explain the entire process of glycolysis. What is consumed? What is produced?
What is the difference between substrate level phosphorylation and oxidative phosphorylation? When and
where does each type occur during respiration? How much ATP does each produce?
Which processes require oxygen? Which require an absence of oxygen? Which can proceed with or without?
When in respiration is carbon dioxide released?
What produces the most energy? How?
Where do all the processes of cellular respiration occur?
What is the role of oxygen in cellular respiration?
What is the difference between NADH and FADH2 when it comes to the ETC?
How is a proton gradient formed?
Which way do electrons flow to create the gradient? Which way do they flow to form ATP?
Chapter 10
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Describe the processes of the light reactions.
Describe the processes of the Calvin cycle.
What is made in the light reactions and used in the calvin cycle?
Where do the light reactions occur? What about the calvin cycle?
What is the role of oxygen during the light reactions?
How does the proton gradient form? Where does it form?
What is chemiosmosis? What does it make?
Where are ATP synthase and the proteins of the ETC located?
What is the main function of the calvin cycle?
What is the final product of the calvin cycle? How many of these are needed to make glucose?
If only 1 carbon dioxide can enter the cycle at a time, how many turns would be required to make glucose?
What is the difference between linear and cyclic electron flow?
What are alternative pathways to the calvin cycle? Why are they needed?
What was Engelmann’s experiment? What did it help determine or prove?
You will have lots of questions such as “which is not involved in the light reactions?” or “which is not part of the
calvin cycle?”
Chapter 11
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What is endocytosis? Exocytosis?
What is a signal transduction pathway?
What are local regulators? What are its roles in paracrine and synaptic signaling?
What are hormones?
What are the 3 stages of cell signaling? Be able to describe each.
What is a ligand?
What are the three main types of membrane receptors? Be able to describe each.
What are intracellular receptors? What are second messengers? Be able to describe the difference between the
two?
9. What are protein kinases? Protein phosphatases?
10. How do you fine tune a signal response?
11. What is apoptosis?
Chapter 12
1. The process by which somatic cells divide is called ________________.
2. What is a centromere? What is a centrosome? What is a centriole? What is a chromatid? What is chromatin?
What is a chromosome?
3. What are the phases of mitosis? What happens in each stage? What happens in each stage with respect to
chromosome/chromatid number?
4. Where do microtubules form?
5. What is cytokinesis? Differentiate between cytokinesis in plant and animal cells.
6. How does the cell plate form? What is responsible for the action of the cleavage furrow.
7. Describe the 5 stages of the cell cycle and what happens in each stage.
Chapter 13
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What are the differences between sexual and asexual reproduction?
What is a locus?
What is a karyotype? At which stage of mitosis is it usually made?
What are the human sex chromosomes? What do they do? How are the different?
Distinguish between diploid and haploid number and cells in organisms.
Fertilization results in a ____________.
What is nondisjunction? At what phase would it occur?
Explain the difference between meiosis I and meiosis II.
What is the difference between mitosis and meiosis?
Chapter 14
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Be able to determine the number of different gametes produced from a given genotype.
Be able to work a monohybrid cross and distinguish between genotype and phenotype.
What does it mean if a plant is pure or true breeding?
Be able to work a dihybrid cross.
Be able to determine genotype of offspring using the rule of probability.
Be able to work blood type problems.
7. Explain polygenic, pleiotropy, incomplete dominance, codominance, and multiple alleles. Know which traits are
caused by some of these. (i.e blood type caused by multiple alleles, skin color caused by….)
8. Explain epistasis.
9. Be able to read a pedigree.
Chapter 15
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Who worked with fruit flies? What did he discover? Why were most of the white eyes male?
Be able to work sex linked crosses.
List the dominant human disorders. List the recessive human disorders. Be able to work crosses with both.
What is a barr body? Where is it found?
The further apart 2 genes are, the more likely they are to be separated by ______________.
What are linked genes?
What is recombination frequency? How do you calculate it?
Be able to construct a chromosome map when given recombination frequencies.
Distinguish between chromosomal deletion, inversion, duplication, translocation, and nondisjunction.
What is Turner syndrome? What causes it?
What is Down’s syndrome? What causes it? What contributes to it?
Chapter 16
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What bond holds the strands of DNA together?
Be able to calculate the amount of nitrogen bases in DNA when given the number of one base.
What did Chargaff do?
Why does DNA have a uniform diameter?
What are the purines? What are the pyrimidines?
How is replication in prokaryotes different than eukaryotes?
What does antiparallel mean?
What does helicase do? What does SSBP do? RNA primase? DNA polymerase 3? DNA polymerase I? Ligase?
What are telomeres? What is telomerase?
What determines the sequence of bases on the newly formed DNA strand?
Distinguish between leading and lagging strands. What are okazaki fragments?
Be able to pair DNA with DNA, DNA with RNA, RNA with RNA.
What is a nucleoside triphosphate in DNA? How does it differ from ATP?
Why does a new strand elongate in the 5-3 direction?
Chapter 17
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What is a codon? What is an anticodon?
What is the wobble effect?
What is RNA polymerase? How does it differ from DNA polymerase?
What does transcription start with? End with?
What is transcription? What is translation?
Be able to read a codon chart and determine RNA and amino acids.
What are introns? Exons?
Describe the process of RNA goes through after transcription.
What happens first in translation? Describe the process after that.
What are the types of point mutations?
11. What is the difference between silent, missense, and nonsense?
12. What is a frameshift mutation?
Chapter 18
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What is an operon? What is an operator? What is a promoter?
What is a repressor? Co repressor?
What is feedback inhibition?
What is regulation of gene expression?
What are the differences between the repressible and inducible operon? Describe each and give an example of
each.
6. List some of the other means of gene regulation.
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