SCI 135 - First Exam Fall 2021

SCI 135 - First Exam Fall 2021

MULTIPLE CHOICE.

On the line to the left, place the letter of the choice that best answers the question.

Three Points Each. NOTE: "e" answers are never the correct answer.

1. The typical pathway of energy in a food chain:

_______ a. Consumers, decomposers, producers

b. Producers, decomposers, consumers

c. Producers, consumers, decomposers

d. Decomposers, producers, consumers

e. Red Bull, jittery student, you don’t want to know...

2. Which confounding factor would be most associated with

postmodernism?
_______ a. Experimenter bias b. Statistical error

c. Outside interference d. Null hypothesis

e. One with a post in it (but a modern one)

3. Which is an example of spontaneous generation?

__________ a. Baby snakes hatching from eggs

b. Amebas dividing

c. A scar forming where a wound was

d. Snails forming from rocks on a stream bottom

e. I just know that my paycheck does something like the opposite...

4. In modern university science, peer review usually involves

_______ a. Research supervisors b. Journal editors

c. Laboratory colleagues d. Fellow students

e. Bad habits

5. Which relationship “chain” is correct?

_______ a. Tissues are in cells which are in organs

b. Organs are in cells which are in tissues

c. Organs are in tissues which are in cells

d. Cells are in tissues which are in organs

e. Is it okay if I run screaming from the room?

6. Which would be a direct observation?

_______ a. You see a cell through a microscope

b. You hear a bird but can’t see it

c. You read about a bright light seen in the sky last night

d. You listen to a friend’s story about how a skunk smells

e. You meet Quentin Tarantino?

7. Which term is applied as “your idea is wrong”?

_______ a. Negative proof b. Confounding factor

c. Null hypothesis d. Anti-conclusion

e. A slap upside the head

8. In a test of new drugs, all test groups get the same basic treatment

in order to figure in the

_______ a. Double blind b. Treatment effect

c. Patient effect d. Placebo effect

e. Most ways to divert money

9. ATP is

_______ a. An energy-carrying molecule b. A light-capturing molecule

c. A genetic coding molecule d. All of these

e. Something new from Charmin-?

10. Two isotopes of the same element would have

_______ a. Different proton numbers but the same neutron numbers

b. Different neutron numbers but the same proton numbers

c. The same neutron and proton numbers

d. Different neutron and proton numbers

e. The amazing ability to annoy everybody

11. If an experiment requires subjects to rank the strength of a memory

from 1 to 5, they're being asked for

__________ a. Qualitative data only

b. Quantitative data only
c. Quantitative data made into qualitative data

d. Qualitative data made into quantitative data

e. Some pretty silly stuff

12. All of the energy-using chemical reactions in an organism are

combined in its

__________ a. Overall weight b. Respiration c. Metabolism

d. Waste production e. Icky, sticky messiness

SHORT ANSWER. Answer any eight of the following questions for 4 Points Each.

Note: if you answer more than eight, only the first eight will be corrected.

You can get partial credit on these answers.

1. What is the current, most generally accepted definition of what makes a group a species?

2. What are two basic categories of experimental models?

3. If a scientist believes that a group is not classified properly -

What are

they easily

allowed to do?

What are they

generally not

allowed to do?

4. Put this list in order so that each level contains the previous one - community, ecosystem, population.

5. What are the energy sources for -

PHOTOSYNTHESIS?

CHEMOSYNTHESIS?

6. What defines a colonial organism (unicellular or otherwise)?

7. Briefly, why are radicals so potentially damaging in cells?

8. In cladistics, what determines the “splits” in family trees?

9. Put the following groups in order from the largest to the smallest: Class, Family, Genus, Kingdom, Order, Phylum, Species, Suborder, Superclass.

10. What does “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” mean?

11. What has the strongest driving influence on Natural Selection? (What part of “Nature”?

12. What gets compared to do the measurements of a molecular clock?

13. Why does carbon dating not work reliably on things over 60,000 years old?

14. In an experiment, what is an artifact?

15. What, technically, is a gene?

16. What are two ways to lower the effects that pure chance will have on a experiment's results?

LONG ANSWER.

Answer any four of the following questions for Eight Points Each.

Note: if you answer more than four, only the first four will be corrected.

You can get partial credit on these answers.

1. Give the following for sexual reproduction -

BASIC DEFINITION

ADVANTAGE

compared to asexual

DISADVANTAGE

compared to asexual

2. Give two different rules that apply to each in binomial nomenclature:

FIRST

WORD

SECOND

WORD

ENTIRE

NAME

3. All for the most common isotope –

How many protons?

39.09

Potassium

Number 19

Column 1

How many

neutrons?

How many

electrons? (Uncharged form)

Typical ion form?

4. When biologists are trying to decide whether viruses are truly alive, these are important:

Two traits viruses have IN COMMON with all living things.

Two traits all living things should have that all viruses do not.

5. What are four basic features that all living things are supposed to have?

6. Name four of the Six “Basic” Kingdoms, and for each list enough traits to make it clearly different from the other five.

7. Answer the following about classic Scientific Method:

Two features a good

hypothesis should have

Role served by the

experimental variable

Purpose of the control

test

LINK TO ANSWER KEY

BONUS QUESTIONS. Answer as many as you are able. Wrong answers will not result in points being lost from the main exam. You can get partial credit on these answers.

Why should having had COVID (the actual virus) be more immunologically protective than getting the current vaccines? Three Points.

Diseases that have just moved into humans generally start out really nasty but get much milder over time. Why? Three Points.

How does sexual selection happen with asexual reproducers? Three Points.

Briefly, what is wrong with saying that your results proved your hypothesis?

What’s the important change in a classic control test? Three Points.

What used to be the common language of science? Three Points.

What was Linnaeus’ field of study, other than classification? Three Points.

Give an example of convergent evolution. Three Points.

The older 5-Kingdom System used as an introduction has been replaced with a newer 6-Kingdom System. What’s the new one? Three Points.

Mendeleev, the Periodic Table guy – where was he from? Three Points.