The Study Questions below are intended as a study tool. Write short answers to them using your lecture notes and textbook as references. After you have worked on them alone for awhile, I strongly recommend that you meet with other students in a study group to discuss the Study Questions and your answers. You may also raise these Study Questions in lecture and during meetings with me. Exam questions will be based on the correct and complete answers to the Study Questions.

1. What is science? Include a description of the "natural world" in your discussion.

2. We discussed three ways in which individual humans acquire knowledge. Describe each of them.

3. Individual humans combine all three ways of knowing things described in 2 above. Science allows only reason as a way to add to scientific knowledge. How did this practice arise?

4. S. J. Gould maintains that faith and reason are ways two acquire two different kinds of knowledge. Briefly describe what he says (to the extent we discussed it in lecture).

5. The scientific method is an instinctive process that humans use to understand the physical world. What basic four steps does it include?

6. We discussed three assumptions under which the scientific method has come to operate. Describe them. For each, discuss how it helps the scientific method work.

7. Several statements are listed below. Discuss how each is or is not a good scientific hypothesis, i.e. how it can or cannot be tested by experiment or observation.

a. The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.

b. Endangered species must be protected from extinction.

c. Extrasensory perception (ESP, the ability to read other people's thoughts and perceptions) is an activity of the human brain that has no physical basis, i.e. it is not a natural phenomenon.

d. All men (and women) are created equal.

e. Smoking cigarettes causes lung cancer.

f. Brahm's first symphony is beautiful.

 

8. What is a "control" in an experiment?

9. Critique this statement. "The purpose of science is to disprove the occurrence of supernatural phenomena."

10. Why is it that scientists are often not very convincing when they present their opinions?

11. A scientist is put in the witness stand to testify as an expert on behalf of the defendant in a criminal case. After providing his testimony, the prosecutor leaps to his feet and cries, "But Dr. Jones, isn't it true that your testimony based entirely upon a theory?" Dr. Jones smiles, convinced that his testimony has exonerated the defendant. "Why yes" Dr. Jones says, "It is. Thank you very much."

Explain the misunderstanding between the prosecutor and the scientist.

12. Describe the four characteristics of living things that we discussed in lecture. Can you think of additional characteristics that are common in living things?

13. Be able to recognize a definition of the words "homeostasis" and "metabolism". How could you use these words in describing the four characteristics of life in Question 12 above?

14. Briefly describe the differences between protons, neutrons, and electrons. Be able to recognize definitions of the words "proton", "neutron", and "electron". What symbols do we use for proton and electron when we write these in lecture?

15. Atoms "like" to have their electron shells full. How does this lead to covalent bonds between atoms?

16. What creates the ionic bond between Na⁺ and Cl^- in a sodium chloride crystal? How does water cause that ionic bond to break?

17. What kinds of atoms do the following atomic symbols stand for?

H, O, C, Na, Cl, K, N, S, P

18. What makes a water molecule "polar"? How does this polarity allow hydrogen bonding between water molecules? How does it cause salt crystals to dissolve in water?

19. Which contains more hydrogen ions (H⁺) per liter:

a. A solution of pH 3 or pure water?

b. An acidic solution or a basic solution?

c. A solution of pH 8 or pure water?

d. A solution of pH 3 or pH 8?

e. Lemon juice or milk?

20. Carbon atoms have only 4 electrons in their outer electron shell. How does this make them suitable as the basis of complex but stable biological molecules?

21. What is a "polymer"? What is a "monomer"?

22. Sugars dissolve easily in water but triglycerides (oils) do not. Explain.

23. What makes lipids a better long term storage material for animals than carbohydrates?

24. What are sucrose and glucose used for by plants and animals, respectively? How does their chemical structure suit these molecules to this use?

25. What is starch made of? What is cellulose made of? Give examples of common materials that contain these two carbohydrates.

26. Phospholipids spontaneously form lipid bilayers in water. Triglycerides form globules instead. How do the chemical structures of phospholipids and triglycerides cause these different responses to water?

27. What are the monomers of which proteins are composed? How can changes in the order of these monomers change the properties of the protein?

28. How is a long strand of amino acids held in a 3 dimensional shape? What is significant about this shape?

28a. Be able to recognize definitions of the following terms related to protein structure:

R group

the primary structure of a protein

the tertiary structure of a protein

29. What is the "active site" of an enzyme? What is the "substrate" of an enzyme?

30. What do enzymes do? Why do living things need so many different kinds of enzymes?

31. Briefly describe structural proteins and transporter proteins.

32. Most proteins lose their shape when boiled. How does heating cause this loss of shape? Proteins that lose their shape often can't perform their function. Explain this.

33. What are the major functions of DNA and RNA in cells? How are DNA and RNA different chemically?

34. What are the four "letters" of the "genetic code"? What part of their nucleotide molecules do the letters stand for? What do these letters code for?

35. Is RNA a double strand of nucleotides or a single strand? Is DNA a double strand or a single strand? For double stranded nucleic acids, how are the two strands held together in the "double helix"?

36. Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is a nucleotide that is not polymerized into a nucleic acid. What is it important for?

37. In simple terms, how does the sequence of nucleotides in a gene give rise to the sequence of amino acids in a protein? What makes the sequence of amino acids in a protein important?

38. The origin of life is a question with many facets and some philosophical implications. The leading scientific hypothesis is that the first living things occurred spontaneously (all by themselves) on the young Earth as the result of natural processes. Why is this the preferred hypothesis over the other two we discussed in lecture?

39. Stanley Miller showed that combining NH₄, H₂S, CH₄, H₂, and liquid water with an electrical discharge could generate a variety of amino acids and organic acids. How did this experiment contribute to the hypothesis that the first living things occurred spontaneously on the young Earth?

40. Amino acids and nucleotides must assemble into polymers to make the proteins and nucleic acids required for life. This does not occur spontaneously in water. How might it have occurred on the early Earth?

41. How would oxygen gas (O₂) have prevented the accumulation of biological molecules needed for the first cells? Is life possible without oxygen? Where is the Earth's oxygen believed to have come from and when?

42. Briefly describe the functions of the following components of cells:

the cell membrane

the chromosome(s)

the mitochondrion

the chloroplast

ribosomes

endoplasmic reticulum (ER)

43. Describe three of the important differences between Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes.

44. Describe the Endosymbiont Hypothesis for the origins of chloroplasts and mitochondria in eukaryotes.

45. For an early eukaryote, what would be the advantage of having mitochondria. What would be the advantage of having chloroplasts?

46. What is the evidence that chloroplasts and mitochondria descended from prokaryote ancestors?

47. What kinds of proteins are present in cell membranes and what do they do?

48. How do different kinds of molecules enter cells? Answer for H₂O, O₂, CO₂, Na⁺ ions, H⁺ ions (protons), glucose, amino acids, and proteins.

49. What structures would you expect to find in a nucleus? What do these things do for the cell? What are nuclear pores and what do they do?

50. What are the parts of the endomembrane system? How would they act together in a cell that is secreting insulin or mucous proteins?

51. Vocabulary. Be prepared to give a definition of the following:

organelle

micron (µm)

solute

ion

hydrophobic

hydrophilic

membrane lipid

aerobic respiration

O₂

CO₂

sugar

fatty acid

cytoplasm

polar

 

52. What three types of vesicles did we discuss? How are they different? How are they similar? What do they do?

53. What is the function of mitochondria? How do the folds of the inner membrane contribute to this function?

54. How is the cytoskeleton be involved in secretion of mucous by the endomembrane system of cells in your throat? How is the cytoskeleton be involved in muscle cells during muscle contraction? What are motor proteins?

55. Briefly state the First Law of Thermodynamics as presented in lecture. What does this have to do with biology?

56. We stated four "rules" of bioenergetics. What were they? Give an example of each.

(We only got through 3 rules so state and give examples of the three)

57. How is osmosis a demonstration of the Second Law of Thermodynamics? (No equations necessary, just use a verbal description).

58. Describe how red blood cells in your blood explode if they are put in pure water.

59. What is meant by oxidation and reduction reactions?