HONORS BIOLOGY SEMESTER EXAM REVIEW 2015-2016
Please read carefully!!!
I have some experience with taking exams, and preparing for those exams. The point is that I am going to give
you some advice, and depending on how much you care about your grade, you can take my advice or not.
Study a little bit at a time. This covers a lot of time -since August! It will take some time to study. You cannot
learn 5 months of material in less than a week, but you can refresh your memory about things that you have
already learned. These are the steps I recommend.
1) Go to your book and open it up. This test will cover chapters 1.3, 2, 7, 8, 9 12.1, 12.2. The last chapter is probably fresh in
your mind so concentrate on the material. You do not have to read through all the chapters, but look through them. Read the
section titles, glance at bold print words, and pictures. It will jog your memory about the topics. When you look at the
questions, you’ll remember what chapter to look it up in.
2) Since you have kept notes just flip through those as well. Look especially at the notes I gave you in class.
3) Now, go to the study questions. Write down something for each one. Don’t just look at it and say-oh yeah, I think I know that.
Make yourself actually write something down. You’ll find out if you REALLY do know it, and writing it down will commit it to
memory.
4) If you answer every question on the review sheet you should be very well prepared for the test. Have this done a day or two
before the test. The night before the test just take a little time to read over your review sheet, and you are ready to take the
test. Get a good night’s sleep, eat something for breakfast (it makes your brain work much better!), and feel confident. You
always know more than you think you do!
Studying Life: Chapter 1 Section 3
1. What is the definition of biology? What is a biologist?
2. How do living things produce new organisms?
3. What are the characteristics that are true of all living things?
4. What is homeostasis? metabolism?
Nature of Matter: Chapter 2 Section 1
5. What is the difference between a molecule (compound) and an atom? Provide an example of each.
6. Describe the parts of the atom and how are they different?
7. Where is most of the atom's mass?
8. What is an element?
9. What is a chemical symbol? What is a chemical formula? Provide examples of each.
10. What is the atomic number?
11. What is the mass number?
12. What is a covalent bond?
13. What is an ionic bond?
14. What is an ion?
Properties of Water: Chapter 2 Section 2
15. Describe (draw if it helps) the structure and behavior of a molecule of water. Include a thorough description of polarity.
16. Why is water called the universal solvent?
17. What is hydrogen bonding?
18. Explain adhesion, cohesion, and surface tension.
19. What is the pH of water? Acids? Bases?
Carbon Compounds: Chapter 2 Section 3
20. What is an organic compound?
21. What basic atoms are found in carbohydrates?
22. How are polysaccharides formed?
23. What are the four main kinds of macromolecules?
24. Know the monomers that make up the four main classes of organic polymers (macromolecules).
25. How do you identify a carbohydrate, lipid or protein, or nucleic acid?
26. What is dehydration synthesis?
Chemical Reactions: Chapter 2 Section 4
27. What are reactants and products?
28. How are a chemical change and physical change different?
29. List evidence that chemical change has occurred.
Cells: Chapter 7
30. What is the definition of a cell?
31. What are the parts of a eukaryotic cell and what are their functions?
32. What is the difference between a eukaryote and prokaryote?
33. What are the main differences between a plant and animal cell?
34. What is cell specialization?
35. How are cells organized in living things?
36. What is lipid? What is the structure of a lipid? What is its function in the body?
37. Describe the structure of a cell membrane.
38. Describe the movement of molecules during diffusion.
39. What is osmosis?
40. How do you determine the concentration of a solution?
41. How would you know if a solution is hypertonic, hypotonic or isotonic?
42. Review the egg lab (diffusion and the cell membrane lab) and describe what happened to the water and syrup egg and why.
43. Compare facilitated diffusion and active transport.
Photosynthesis & Cellular Respiration: Chapters 8 & 9
44. What is the chemical equation for photosynthesis (know the reactants and the products)?
45. Where does photosynthesis occur?
46. How is energy stored during photosynthesis?
47. Where does cellular respiration occur?
48. What is ATP?
49. What is the overall chemical equation for cellular respiration (what goes in and what comes out)?
50. What molecule is broken down to release energy in cellular respiration?
51. What is chlorophyll's role in photosynthesis?
52. Which wavelengths of visible light does chlorophyll absorb?
53. How are photosynthesis and cellular respiration dependent on one another?
54. What is the source of all energy in a food chain? What does this have to do with photosynthesis?
55. In which cells do photosynthesis and cellular respiration occur?
Cell Growth and Division: Chapter 10
56. Why is a cell’s size limited? Explain surface area to volume ratio.
57. What is the end result of Cell Division?
58. Review the cell cycle and the distinct phases in each part of the cycle.
59. Know the parts of a chromosome.
60. Be able to recognize cells in mitosis.
61. What are homologous chromosomes?
62. What regulates the cell cycle?
DNA: Chapter 12 Sections 1 & 2
63. Who was Griffith and Avery and what were their experiments?
64. Who were Hershey and Chase and what was their experiment?
65. Know the structure of DNA. What is a nucleotide? What are its parts?
66. Understand the process of DNA replication.
67. Know what complementary base pairing is.
68. These individuals helped us learn the structure of DNA: Watson, Crick, Wilkins, Franklin, and Chargaff (be able to identify how
they contributed)
69. Who won the Nobel Prize for the structure of DNA?
70. What pieces of evidence really helped Watson and Crick figure it all out?