Final Exam Study Guide
Instrumentation
Students should be familiar with common units for measuring length mass, volume and should be
able to convert between units for these values (e.g. mg to g).
Students should be familiar with the basic principles behind how a spectrophotometer functions
and the meaning of absorbance value. Students should be able to identify and correctly use a
spectrophotometer.
Students should be familiar with the concept of pH and how to measure it accurately (according to
what was performed in class).
Students should be familiar with the common types of lab glassware (beakers, flasks and
graduated cylinders) and should know which are appropriate for certain tasks (e.g. accurately
measuring volume)
Students should be familiar with the concept of molarity and percentage as measurements of
concentration and should be able to calculate how to make solutions of a stated concentration.
Students should be able to make dilutions of solutions to achieve a desired concentration. They
should also be able to set up a serial dilution.
Students should be familiar with the scientific method and its steps. They should understand what
sample size is and its relationship to sampling error. They should be able to distinguish between
control and experimental variables. They should be able to describe the differences between an
experimental group, a negative control group and a positive control group.
Environmental Pollution
Students should be familiar with the concept of pollution.
Students should know what the hypotheses were, what the control variables were, and what the
experimental variable was.
Students should be able to describe the nature of their negative control group.
Students should be able to describe the function of the AlgaGro reagent.
Students should be able to describe the organism used and how its growth was measured.
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Diffusion and Osmosis
Students should be familiar with the concepts of diffusion and osmosis and the terms solvent,
solute and solution.
Students should be able to describe what occurs in a cell that is in a hypertonic solution, a cell in
an isotonic solution and a cell in a hypotonic solution.
Students should know what the hypothesis was, what the control variables were, and what the
experimental variable was.
Students should be able to describe the effect of temperature on the rate of diffusion of a particle
in water.
If given example data (similar to what they collected in lab), students should be able to analyze it
to determine which solutions were hypertonic, which were isotonic and which were hypotonic.
Students should be able to approximate the concentration of total solutes in the cells.
Lab #4: Enzyme Activity
Students should be familiar with the terms catalysts, enzymes, substrate, active site and products,
as they apply to chemical reactions.
Students should be familiar with the enzyme catalase and should be able to identify its substrate(s)
and products(s). Students should be able to describe how the enzyme was extracted from living
cells and how its enzymatic activity was measured in lab.
For both sets of experiments, students should know what the hypothesis was, what the control
variables were, and what the experimental variable was.
If given example data (similar to what they collected in lab), students should be able to analyze it
to determine how the amount of either substrate or enzyme affected the amount of product
produced.
Independent Study
No questions regarding this lab exercise will be on the final exam.
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Photosynthesis
Students should be familiar with the following concepts, terms and molecules: wavelength,
photons, pigments and chlorophyll.
Students should be able to describe the process of photosynthesis, including identifying the
starting materials and the final products.
Students should know what the hypothesis was, what the control variables were, and what the
experimental variable was.
Students should be able to draw/describe the experimental setup including describing the organism
used, the purpose of reagents used and how various wavelengths of light effect the plant.
Students should be able to describe the relationship between pH in a water solution and the
photosynthetic activity of algae in the solution.
If given example data (similar to what they collected in lab), students should be able to analyze it
to determine how the removal of a specific wave length affected pH over time and what this
means in terms of its impact on the plant’s photosynthetic activity over time.
Genetics
Students should be familiar with the following concepts and terms: DNA, nucleotides,
chromosome. genes, genotype, phenotype, diploid, chromosome, allele, homozygous,
heterozygous, polygenic inheritance and continuous variation.
Students should be able to describe the difference between dominant alleles and recessive alleles.
Students should be able to describe the genotype of an individual (given their alleles) in terms of
homozygous dominant, homozygous recessive or heterozygous.
Students should be familiar with the conventional two-letter shorthand for describing genotype
and should be able to construct Punnett squares to predict the outcomes of matings.
Students should be able to describe each step of the DNA extraction according to the genetics lab
assignment.
Students should be able to describe what occurred to the cells/cellular structure at each step of the
DNA extraction according to the genetics lab assignment.
Students should be able to describe the purpose of reagents used during the DNA extraction and
their effect on cellular structure according to the genetics lab assignment.
