The most important concepts to Review   
download Wednesday's 2001 test (answers at the end)  
    Thursday's test (answers at the end)  
download 2000 test (answers at the end)  
download 1999 test (answers at the end)  1999 test (other questions)

TEST FORMAT:   The test has three parts.  Each part counts 1/4, and your best part counts as 2/4.  Since the test is during the lab period, you may choose to spend up to two-and-a-half hours suffering.  Most of your classmates will be finished in half that time, but this web page is just for you personally.

1. Genetics problems, like the virtual fly lab, the take-home problem set and other problems in chapter 10 

2. Multiple choice questions on all the chapters: mitosis (chapter 8),  meiosis and  (chapter 9), basic genetics (chapter 10), DNA (chapter 11 and 12), and RNA (chapter 13).  You might want to look up some definitions and get other supplementary help here:  http://emice.nci.nih.gov/learning_tools/ 

3. Other questions, like

   1. short essays on issues or examples in the chapters listed above and 

   2. interpretation of graphs and science news stories like those on help pages and these.    (experiment summaries would be involved, of course.)

   3. You should be prepared to design a better experiment to test von Humboldt's Law (Lab 4) and to discuss potential sources of error and bias in your experiment.

   4. "RACE for the CODON"> Now that you've seen the "Race for the Double Helix" video in lab 6 ,  imagine that you're making a new video, "RACE for the CODON":  what are the basic scientific ideas you would need to get your audience to appreciate?  What experiments would you suggest that students should summarize?

   5. "RACE for the Ribosome?"  as based on chapter 13?  maybe that too!

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Most Important Concepts to REVIEW for TEST 2. Biol 103. 

1. Science involves the careful use of  logic in the formulation of hypotheses and the testing of predictions by observation. To be useful, hypotheses must be testable and falsifiable. [Demonstrate with experiment summaries; cnxn to labs and genetic ratios and other genetics problems]
2. Science relies on observable events in testing hypotheses; experimental results (and predictions of results) must be what can be "seen" and counted or measured.
3. When a hypothesis has been carefully tested and not disproved, it may become a theory or a law. Theories are usually explanations (like "Cystic fibrosis may skip generations because it is recessive" or "Down's syndrome is caused by nondisjunction" or "Barr bodies are inactive X-chromosomes"); laws are usually generalizations (like "All living creatures come from cells which were produced by their ancestors."  Mendel's Laws). All scientific hypotheses, laws, and theories must be potentially disprovable. [Give examples.]
4. Central Dogma:
   • fig.   13.1
   • Information Flow segment of CD Activity 13.2     
   • pp. 252-3
5. Science uses metric units and graphs. [Make sure you can interpret textbook graphs and measurements; you may be asked to draw a graph, maybe a frequency distribution or exponential population growth.] NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter was lost in space a couple of years ago because engineers failed to make a simple conversion from English units to metric
6. During cell division, chromosomes are distributed to the resulting cells in orderly fashion. Chromosomes are made of DNA and special proteins. Since genes' loci are on chromosomes, genes are generally inherited in the same manner as are the chromosomes to which they belong. [cnxn to  Mendel's laws?]
7. Mitosis produces two daughter cells which are genetically identical to each other and to the parent cell. [so clones or zygotes or stem cells or identical twins...?]
8. Meiosis produces four haploid daughter cells, each containing genetically different combinations, one chromosome from each homologous parental pair, and the homologs may have been recombined during crossing-over. [Explain cnxn to sex,   nondisjunction, inheritance, mapping....] 
9. Recombination during meiosis also ensures that sexually reproducing populations never are 100% adapted to their environments.  [Explain why biologists think the "why sex?" question is such a big deal.]
10. Each normal gamete contains only one allele of a gene pair; this explains Mendel's law of ..... [so sex....]
11. The probability of two independent events both occurring equals the product of the probability of each event occurring separately. [so the probability of three independent events....? so the second baby .....]
12. Recessive alleles are apparent in the phenotype only when dominant alleles are not present. Two unlike co-dominant or incompletely dominant alleles can produce a "blended" phenotype. [be able to solve problems:    chapter 10 ]
13. Genes located on the X chromosome have a sex-linked inheritance pattern. [solve problems:  sex ]
14. A monohybrid cross results in recessive phenotypes for 1/4 of the offspring, and a test cross produces 1/2 recessive phenotypes; but most traits are more complex, being controlled by several different sets of interacting genes. [solve problems:  genetics problems:      blood types.  bell-shaped curve]
15. [DNA--->RNA--->protein] The information needed to construct each protein is stored in nucleic acids, usually DNA, a double-helix-shaped macromolecule composed of a specific sequence of nucleotide units. Each nucleotide contains a sugar, a phosphate, and a base--adenine, guanine, cytosine, or thymine (or uracil in RNA).[how does this structure store information?]
16. DNA replicates semi-conservatively and it's immortal [connect to inheritance, mutation, evolution].
17. Transcription is the synthesis of RNA, using DNA as a template. [how?]
18. Translation is the synthesis of protein, using ribosomes, rRNA, mRNA, & tRNA. [how?  mucho details required, of course]
19. Genes are the segments of DNA which serve as templates to transcribe mRNA, the molecule which specifies the sequence of amino acids in proteins. Each three-base sequence (genetic codon) "translates" into one amino acid in a protein. [connect to protein structure/function, mutation, natural selection, adaptation to environmental changes like temperature and pH]]
20. Proteins are macromolecules consisting of specific sequences of linked amino acid units. The sequence of the amino acids determines the shape and, thereby, the function of the protein.  [how does a mutated codon change the shape of a protein?]

Monday's review

1. mitosis video

2. finish chapter 12 and chapter 13

3. News stories

4. most important concepts: 

   • (chapter 8),  Your own cells are all clones, exactly like the original cell produced during your conception.    all life comes from pre-existing cells which keep dividing and making new life.
     

   • meiosis and  (chapter 9),   Without MEIOSIS, 
     sex (gametes and conception) and genetics problems would not exist.

   • basic genetics (chapter 10),  Genetic inheritance is based on probabilities of specific chromosomes and genes being present in the gametes which produce a zygote, the cell which multiplies to produce a new individual.

   •  DNA (chapter 11 and 12), and RNA (chapter 13)

     DNA ->more DNA --> RNA -> protein

   • connections to everything else:  genotype, phenotype, alleles, multiple alleles (like blood type), disorders, mutations, recessive traits, mitosis, cancer, etc.

    

5. Effects of Chromatin on Transcription & DNA Regulatory Regions (from chapter 15, not on test, but helps to understand how everything fits together)

6. http://molvis.sdsc.edu/dna/fs_code.htm 

   http://www.clunet.edu/BioDev/omm/poliiib.htm 

   animation PCR ( http://vector.cshl.org/Shockwave/pcranwhole.html  

   http://vector.cshl.org/Shockwave/cycseq.html )

   a.. http://vector.cshl.org/dnaftb/23/animation/fs.html 

   b.. cell theory & mitosis: http://vector.cshl.org/dnaftb/7/animation/fs.html