<p>Does anyone have any clue on what topics they might ask for the AP Biology essays?</p>
<p>cellular respiration...? it hasn't been on the test in years....</p>
<p>no clue haha. I hope they do cellular respiration, I know all about it :)</p>
<p>explain how water/sugar moves through plants!</p>
<p>iono. i wish.</p>
<p>They rarely ask directly about plants, do they? Maybe they'd ask about the comparison between photosynthesis and cellular respiration, or the different in organelles, like mitochondria/chroloplast's internal pH etc.</p>
<p>Or the importance of each force that pulls water up the plant body...</p>
<p>u never know, the organisms topic can be any of the taxonomy subjects, includes plants</p>
<p>The best review for a lot of general molecular stuff (photosynthesis, cell resp., dna replication, translation and transcription) is to look at animations online from mcgraw hill. Once u get these pictures u never forget the process, heres the link if you wanna take a look. The best animations are the ones that say "McGraw-Hill" next to them, i only look at the mcgraw ones:
<a href="http://science.nhmccd.edu/biol/bio1int.htm%5B/url%5D">http://science.nhmccd.edu/biol/bio1int.htm</a></p>
<p>i can memorize the whole taxonomy diagrams of animals and plants so that's not much problem though (i don't think they'd ask about it. that's too much memorizing).</p>
<p>i just have to memorize the animalia phyla characteristics (symmetry, locomotion, body cavities, etc..) and then im not sure if i should read the labs in the back of PR, we havent done any in class</p>
<p>If you havent done ANY of the labs, then you should really try and learn them, unless you can devise experiments pretty easily and quickly, and happen to know lab equipment, because one essay will be lab based. Im guessing its cell respiration, like everyone else. There will probably be a genetics (possible biotech) questions becasue there was evolution last year. There weren't any body systems question last year, so that might be one to look out for...</p>
<p>will there be a lab that tells you to:</p>
<p>"Design an experiment in which...."</p>
<p>My teacher had a list up of all the lab questions over the last 15 years or so. It's supposedly random, but obviously they won't use the same ones within relatively short spans of time (although I suppose they could).</p>
<p>There hasn't been a Hardy-Weinberg lab question in awhile (Lab 8).</p>
<p>thanks everyone. Hehe... I hope it's a Hardy-Weinberg question :)</p>
<p>There used to be some lab questions that directly ask us to design experiments, but even if it doesn't ask that way, sometimes we still need our lab knowledge. see this article from
<a href="http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/members/article/1,3046,151-165-0-26684,00.html%5B/url%5D">http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/members/article/1,3046,151-165-0-26684,00.html</a> (register first)</p>
<p>[The first question in AP Biology 2003, free response part.]
This question had three parts: analysis of three generations of fruit flies to determine original parents and type of genetic transmission, use of a chi-square test to see if observed results were close to expected, and definition/explanation of mutation. </p>
<p>What Students Wrote:
Disappointingly, at least half the students worked this problem as an autosomal cross. Their Punnett squares involved Ee X Ee, or they would use XX and XY but put genes on all the chromosomes! There was every notation known to man for the alleles, and the sex-linkage notations ran from XeY to XeO to eY to e/ -- as long as it was apparent that the student knew the Y carried no gene for this trait, credit was given. Many students said the original cross was Ee X ee because that was the only way to get a 2:2 ratio.... The huge volume of poor answers was most puzzling because this cross is taught not only in AP but also at the first-year biology level and should have been familiar and easy for students. </p>
<p>There were very few students who understood how to do a X2, even when the formula and term explanations were given in the question. This was a surprise because that is one of the stated objectives on Lab 7. Even if the math was done incorrectly (and the math was very simple), points were awarded for correct setup hypothesis of numbers expected and for correct setup of the solution equation. Many, many students would get the correct final answer of 2, but then take the square root of it to get X! Very few could say that the table would be read at 3 degrees of freedom, and almost none explained the significance of the X2 value in this situation. </p>
<p>Mutation was the strongest section on this question: many students answered only this part but earned all 4 points. The simple definition of mutation as "a change in the DNA sequence of an organism" (or change in their genes) was sufficient for a point; many gave good examples of base-substitutions or frame shift mutations and tied that change to possible mild-to-drastic changes in protein structure. A real bright spot. </p>
<p>Common Mistakes/Misconceptions:
Sex-linked traits have genes on both the X and Y chromosomes.
Mutations always have phenotypic consequences.
Mutations only occur at replication.
Mutations only occur when meiosis is taking place.
Mutations occur when DNA is misread.
Mutations occur during transcription or translation.
Crossing over causes mutations.
Allele = nucleotide.
Wild type = dominant (rather like mistakenly assuming having five fingers rather than six must be dominant because it is the most common).M
If X2 = 2, then the correct answer is X = square root of 2.
X2 number = the degrees of freedom. </p>
<p>What Teachers Can Do: Perform Lab 7, if not with Drosophila then with Wisconsin Fast Plants or Nasonia, or do an online simulation or a paper lab with real counts. Be sure students can hypothesize expected outcomes based on Mendelian genetics and run chi-square tests to check their hypothesis. </p>
<p>NEWS FLASH!!! To many of us, the term codon has specifically referred to an mRNA triplet that "coded" for a particular amino acid. Codon is now also used to specify three DNA bases that will ultimately dictate the amino acid to be placed in a protein.
This question had three parts: analysis of three generations of fruit flies to determine original parents and type of genetic transmission, use of a chi-square test to see if observed results were close to expected, and definition/explanation of mutation. </p>
<p>...</p>
<p>This may be just a few percentages from all, but it's important.</p>
<p>what do u think will be this time's LAB essay?</p>
<p>bump bumpity... I also want to know about the LAB essay.</p>