WorksheetsAP BIOLOGY MCQ
Total questions: 60
Worksheet time: 1hrs 5mins
There is evidence that Macroglossum setallatarum (hummingbird hawk moth) responds to certain electromagnetic frequencies in the ultrasound range. This response causes it to drop a few inches in its flight pattern.
Which of the following is the MOST plausible reason for this response
This frequency range causes its wing muscles to temporarily seize
The frequency range interrupts its ability to perceive its surroundings and is temporarily stunned
This frequency range matches the range emitted by predatory bats during their hunting trips
This frequency range disrupts the air flow (aerodynamics) around them
As the human population in the United States has increased over time, more and more forest habitats have cleared, developed and fragmented.
Which of the following statements regarding forest fragmentation is CORRECT
Fragmented forests support greater niche diversity than non-fragmented forests.
Fragmented forests support less biodiversity than non-fragmented forests
The removal of trees that leads to forest fragmentation improves soil fertility of the fragmented forests
Fragmented forests reach their climax communities faster
A limiting factor is a necessary resource or condition that is limited in a habitat.
Which of the following is MOST accurate about limiting factors?
Limiting factors always have a negative impact on the organisms in that habitat
Limiting factors often have a positive impact on the environment and ensure biodiversity
Limiting factor will allow species to flourish for an indefinite period and increase biodiversity
Limiting factors are bad for population growth and biodiversity
As the Pacific Ocean gets warmer, it absorbs greater concentration of carbon dioxide and becomes increasingly acidic.
Which of the following predicts the abiotic or biotic factor that is MOST directly affected in the ocean by this change?
salinity
plankton
fish
evaporation
In the food web depicted above, an increase in the population of osprey would cause which of the following to occur?
An initial decrease in the population of small planktivorous fish
An initial decrease in the wading bird population
An initial increase in the population of bald eagles
An initial decrease in the sea duck population
The orb weaver spider (Tetragnatha montana) is commonly utilized by the wasp (Acrodactyla quadrisculpta) during its reproductive cycle. The wasp implants its eggs on the back of the stretch spider after which the wasp larva (final instar stage) chemically manipulates the spider to construct a web that the larva uses during its final metamorphosis. In doing so, the spider's web insufficiently catches its preys.
Which of the following identifies the correct relationship between these two organisms?
Parasitism
Commensalism
Mutualism
Predation
A hypothetical species of grass snake is living in a field that has an area of five square meters. The current population size is 48 grass snakes. In one year, 10 new snakes are hatched. A total of two snakes dies in the same year.
If the carrying capacity for the population of grass snakes living in the field is 72 snakes, how many years will it take for the snake population to exceed the carrying capacity?
Assume that the growth rate for the population remains constant from year to year.
1 year
2 years
3 years
4 years
The graph below shows the population growth of Atlantic Cod off the east coast of Newfoundland.
In what year did the population MOST likely exceed the resource availability of the area?
1940
1960
1966
1970
Suppose that a population of bacteria capable of reproducing every 20 minutes is cultured from a single individual under laboratory conditions in which unlimited resources are provided, and the mortality rate is zero.
In two hours, the total size of the bacteria population should be?
8 organisms
16 organisms
32 organisms
64 organisms
Suppose you are hired by a local gardening association to monitor the populations of stink bugs in two different locations for one full year. Using the capture/recapture method, you collect the data shown in the table below.
Based on the information you have collected, which of the following is the growth rate for the population A?
0.04
0.16
0.2
0.4
The rate of increase in the biomass of a heterotroph depends on the metabolic needs of the organisms.
Which of the following types of organisms would be a more efficient secondary consumer and why?
Ectotherm because it spends less energy maintaining body temperature
Endotherm because it spends more energy maintaining body temperature
Ectotherm because it spends more energy maintaining body temperature
Endotherms because it spends less energy maintaining body temperature
While outside one warm, mid-summer afternoon, there was a bat that appeared to be sleeping. After nudging it, the bat just laid there for few moments before it roused itself and flew away.
Which of the following is the BEST explanation for what occurred?
The estivating bat is an endotherm with a high metabolic rate
The hibernating bat was in a deep sleep
The bat is an ectotherm with a low metabolic rate during the day time
The bat was cold and trying to conserve energy for the nighttime hunting
In an experiment, scientists took plants and exposed them to different amounts of light and darkness to see if they would flower.
Which of the following describes the significance of this experiment?
The amount of continuous light was the determining factor in flowering.
Long-day plants have a mechanism to determine the season so they can flower before the summer
Changes in the length of night, even with brief flashes of light, had no effect on flowering
Angiosperms only flower at certain times of the year based solely on the amount of continuous darkness they receive
Scientists measured the electromagnetic (EM) radiation reflected or emitted by more than 2100 eggs laid by 251different kinds of birds. This research suggests that some aspect of the EM spectrum might be an important factor used by birds to identify a given egg.
Which of the following is the LEAST appropriate test to determine the validity of this claim?
Paint a blackcap warbler's eggs with UV blocker, and place it among other non-blocked eggs in the warbler's nest
Paint a single robin's egg white, and place it among other regular (blue) robin's eggs.
Remove a cuckoo egg from its nest at 8 AM, and return it to the same nest four hours later.
Heat a model (fake) egg to match the temperature of the other real robin eggs, while ensuring that is otherwise identical
Which of the following statements provides supporting evidence for the RNA World hypothesis?
Enzymatic proteins can catalyze biological reactions, including RNA synthesis.
Some RNA molecules, rather than coding for polypeptides, instead possess catalytic properties
some species of bacteria encode their genetic information in RNA rather than in DNA
DNA encodes for genetic information, which is transformed into the RNA prior to protein synthesis
In which of the following ways does the environment of Earth today differ from the environment of Earth over three billion years ago?
The atmosphere of Earth today contains much less ozone in the stratosphere than the atmosphere of Earth did over three billion years ago
Earth today is not bombarded by space debris as much as it was over three billion years ago
Earth today has a reducing atmosphere, whereas the atmosphere of Earth over three billion years ago was oxidizing
The atmosphere of Earth today allows far more ultraviolet light to reach the planet's surface than did the atmosphere of Earth over three billion years ago.
Pond skaters use four different mating strategies: monogamy; resources defense polygyny, where the male mates with all females that come into his territory; scramble competition polygyny, where males mate with any females they can find regardless of a specific territory; and Lek polygyny, where males gather together and display for females look to mate.
Which of the following BEST describes what happens when the population density changes?
Lek polygamy is used more often as a mating strategy when the population is denser
Monogamy is preferntial to other mating strategies when resources are limited
Males that are capable of using multiple mating strategies are more likely to pass their genes to the next generation
Respurce defense polygyny is less common when predation levels are high
An isolated forest area is dominated by seed-eating birds, fruit-eating mammals, and insectivore amphibians.
The island experiences a long period of drought, causing the extinction of all large animals except for the seed-eating birds. The plant population of the forest recovers with the return of the water sources.
Which of the following is the MOST likely outcome?
Bird populations that specialize in eating fruit and insects will evolve
The bird populations will soon go extinct as well, as they are dependent on the ecological roles of the mammals and amphibians.
The mammals and amphibians will reappear
The plant species will go extinct without the mammals and amphibians
Which of the following statement regarding the process of speciation is CORRECT?
Speciation occurs so slowly that scientists have never observed the emergence of a new species.
Speciation only occurs slowly as small genetic changes accumulate from generation to generation
Speciation can occur as a result of changes in a single gene
Speciation requires the geographic isolation of a small population from a larger parent popualtion
Cladistics is a method used to study evolutionary relationships among organisms sharing a common ancestor. Once relationships have been determined, a cladogram is created to show relatedness based on derived characteristics.
Based on the cladogram above, which of the following species would be the BEST candidate to serve as the out-group for the clade whose common ancestor occurs at Position 3?
Lorises
Tarsiers
New World Monkeys
Old World Monkeys
A doctor at a major medical hospital is presented with a patient with a bacterial infection. The doctor has prescribed an antibiotic to the patient, but the infection is not responding to normal treatment protocols.
Which of the following questions would be the most beneficial follow-up question for the doctor to ask her patient?
Have you taken a course of antibiotics recently?
Have you visited a school recently?
what have you had to eat in the past 24 hours?
How much water have you consumed in the past week?
In which of the following would the MOST highly conserved sequences of nucleic acids be located?
Structurally critical regions of a polypeptide such as an active site region
The intron region of pre-mRNA sequences
Ribosomal RNA sequences
Bacterial genes conferring antibiotic resistance.
Which of the following depicts structures that are analogous, but not homologous?
bluebird wing and penguin wing
Bluebird wing and dragonfly wing
Penguin wing and seal flipper
Seal flipper and dragonfly wing
The ABO blood typing system in humans is determined by a single locus with three alleles: A, B and O. Worldwide, the frequency of the B alleles is 16%
If the blood type is not factor for natural or sexual selection and mutations to the locus are negligible, predict the frequency of the B allele in three generations.
0%
3%
16%
40%
Which of the following scenarios exemplifies genetic drift?
An unusually cool spring causes a species of fireflies to begin reproducing in July rather than the normal mating period of June
An earthquake kills 90% of all the long-flashing fireflies in population of long, medium and short flashing fireflies
A long-flashing firefly migrates from its original population to a new population comprised entirely of medium and short flashing flies
Short flashing fireflies are more difficult to hunt and are eaten less often by predators than medium and long flashing fireflies
Humans have had major impacts, both intentional and unintentional, on populations and ecosystems. Human actions have driven change in ways that provide evidence for evolution. Darwin used examples of human impacts on organisms to support the concept of natural selection.
Which of the following human activities, according to Darwin, demonstrates that selection can cause significant changes to a species?
DNA sequencing
Domestication of plants and animals
Overhunting
Use of microscopes
In a hypothetical situation, a gene in cats that causes softened foot pads is slightly maladaptive. The gene for softened foot pads is linked to the gene for a fur colour pattern that is highly adaptive. The result is that both the softened pad condition and the fur colour pattern increase in a cat population over ten generations.
This scenario supports which of the following statements?
Evolution is a guided process of perfection that tends toward more perfect populations
The overall phenotype of an organism is often the result of adaptive compromises
Fur colour is always a more important influence of fitness than toughness of the foot pads
Because polygenic traits are maladaptive, they will become less common in future generations
Darwin is known for describing "survival of the fittest"- a scenario in which an organism is best able to pass its genes from one generation to the next.
Which of the following scenarios BEST describe survival of the fittest?
Some Galapagos tortoises survive as long as 250 years in varying environments
a mule, is stronger and hardier than either of its parent species
Brightly coloured male cardinals are more likely to be seen by predators but also more likely to attract attention of a female cardinal and thus mate
Some organisms, like dolphins, are capable of learning to communicate with other species, like humans, in order to cope with a changing environment
PCR is a technique used to amplify a certain segment of DNA, potentially creating millions of copies.
Which of the following describes a key step in performing PCR?
Heat shock at 42.C for 90 seconds
Addition of CaCl2 to make the cell's DNA
Addition of Taq polymerase to replicate DNA
Adding RNA primers to flank ends of the DNA that are targeted for copying
The red viscacha rat has almost twice as many chromosomes as one of its closest relatives, the mountains viscacha rat.
Which of the following mechanisms MOST likely resulted in the evolution of the red viscacha rat?
Errors in replication
Errors in meiosis
Environmental adaptations
Unequal crossover
Histone proteins have tails that protrude out from a nucleosome. These can be methylated, causing chromatin to pack more tightly together, or acetylated, promoting a loose chromatin structure.
Which of the following could a researcher expect to find examining the histones of inactivated X chromosomes?
A variable amount of methylation and acetylation
No methylation or acetylation because the chromosome is inactive
A high amount of methylation
A high amount of acetylation
In a typical bacterial operon, which of the following describes where an operator is located to prevent transcription?
Uppstream of the gene and the region of the promoter where RNA polymerase attaches
Downstream of the gene and the region of the promoter where RNA polymerase attaches
At the location where the RNa polymerase attaches
Between the gene and the region of the promoter where RNA polymerase attaches
A particular polypeptide contains a consecutive sequence of the following hydrophobic amino acids: Glycine-Alanine-Valine-Proline_Isoleucine.
Which of the following indicates where would you expect the region of the polypeptide to be located once the final protein was assembled in a cell?
Towards the inside of the folded protein, away from the cytoplasm
Towards the outside of the folded protein, near the cytoplasm
Anywhere in the protein where interactions with polar amino acids are possible
Anywhere in the protein where interactions with electrically charged amino acids are possible.
Which of the follwoing best describes the process seen in the image?
The "TATA" box is used as a signal for the termination of transcription
The enhancer region is upstream from the binding site of the RNA polymerase, which allows transcription factors to bind and initiate transcription
The enhancer region acts to loop up DNA and therefore silence gene expression.
The "TATA" region of the DNA is known as the promoter, which signals DNA polymerase to start transcribing.
If the tempelate of a DNA molecule to be replicated had the following sequence of nucleotide 5'- CGCATAGGC -3', DNA polymerase would
read the template strand in a 3' to 5' direction and synthesize 5'-GCGTATCCG-3'
read the template strand in a 5' to 3' direction and synthesize 3'-GCGTATCCG-5'
read the template strand in a 3' to 5' direction and synthesize 5'-GCCTATCCG-3'
read the template strand in a 3' to 5' direction and synthesize 5'-CGCTATCCG-3'
Rosalind Franklin produced an X-ray image that helped Watson and Crick determine the width of a DNA molecule. Which of the following BEST explains what this information helped them realize?
Bonding between two purines would be consistent with the diameter of the DNA helix
Chargaff's rule did not apply to DNA molecule
Bonding between a purine and pyrimidine would be consistent with this width of a DNA helix since each rug has three-ring molecular dimension
Adenine must bond with cytosine, and guanine must bond with thymine on each rung of the DNA ladder to accommodate for proper diameter of the double helix
Which of the following does the karyotype shown in the picture depict?
A human female without any chromosomal aberrations
A human male with a disorder caused by an unequal crossover event
A human male with a disorder caused by nondisjunction
The human with unknown gender due to a failure of chromosomes to split correctly during meiosis
A scientist is studying the sex determination of a newly discovered lizard species. The scientist incubates eggs at different temperatures and identifies the sex chromosomes of each egg and the phenotypic sex of the lizards after they hatch.
In this species, eggs incubated at cooler temperatures will develop into amles, regardless of sex chromosome composition
In this species, eggs incubated at higher temperatures will develop into females, regardless of sex chromosome composition
The sex of this species is determined only by egg incubation temperature
The sex of this species is determined only by two sex chromosomes
John and his father both have colour blindness, and X-linked, recessive trait. John has a sister, Kathy, who shares same parents. Their mother is not colourblind
Which of the following is the probability of Kathy being colourblind?
0
0.25
0.5
1
Tay Sachs disease is an autosomal recessive condition that causes fat to build up in the brain of a child due to faulty enzyme. This disease is incurable and fatal.
If two parents are carriers for Tay-Sachs, calculate the probability that both of their children would inherit the disorder.
0.25
0.02
0.06
0.10
Scientists collect cell samples from as many species in an ecosystem as possible and perform chromosomes analysis. They record the number of copies for each and summarize the data for both the plants and animals.
Which of the following conclusions can be drawn from the data?
Animal cells are more likely to experience nondisjunction than plant cells
As the number of copies of chromosomes in a cell increases, complexity decreases
Natural selection acts more quickly on animals than on plants.
Polyploidy is more common in plants than in animals
The schematic above shows a typical cell cycle progression. Tha star marks the position of a vital stage in cell cycle control.
Which of the following is the MOST important role of this checkpoint?
To ensure that the cycle does not proceed before the cell goes through G0
To ensure that the cycle does not proceed before sister chromatids are attached to kinetochore microtubules
To ensure that the cycle does not proceed before incorrectly synthesized DNA is repaired
To ensure that the cycle does not proceed before sufficient growth and nutrients are attained
Mitosis is the last of four major stages involved in the cell cycle. Each stage of the cell cycle is highly regulated in order to ensure that the daughter cells created are genetically identical with all organelles present. In the diagram below, the stages of mitosis are shown.
Prophase
Metaphase
Anaphase
Telophase and Cytokinesis
Which of the following scenarios describes a positive feedback mechanism?
After childbirth, high levels of prolactin induce lactation in the mother. During nursing, infant suckling triggers the release of more prolactin, which further stimulates lactation.
After eating, blood glucose levels rise, stimulating the release of insulin from the pancreas. Insulin causes cells to uptake glucose from the blood, lowering blood glucose levels.
several hours after a meal, blood glucose levels begin to drop, prompting the pancreas to secrete glucagon. Glucagon causes the liver to convert stored glycogen into glucose, raising blood glucose levels.
During exercise, an increase in body temperature causes the body to produce sweat. As the sweat vaporizes, the body cools down due to evaporative cooling.
Which of the following could be considered evidence in support of SRY gene expression
The production of follistatin protein
An increase in PGD2 gene expression
A decrease in the epression of WTN4 gene
Repression of the Sox9 gene
While all cells in a particular body have the same DNA, each cell type may express that DNA differently. The differential expression leads to a variety of specific traits for cell types that contribute to their unique function. Some differences in the different cell types are outlined in the table below.
Based on the information in the table, which of the following BEST decribes which cell type would be best adapted to surviving based on producing the largest amounts of energy?
Red blood cells
Liver cells
Muscle cells
Brain cells
The enzyme ATP synthase is part of the process required to synthesize ATP from ADP and inorganic phosphate in the mitochondria.
Which of the follwoing conditions would stimulate the synthesis of ATP
A slowdown of glyoclytic pathway
Elevated oxygen levels
A build up of the proton gradient
Decreased substrate-level phosphorylation in the cytoplasm
During the process of photosynthesis, energy from the sunlight is captured and used to produce sugar molecules. The energy that is stored in ATP and NADPH molecules is used to produce carbohydrates from carbon dioxide in the Calvin cycle.
Which of the follwoing BEST describes the energy conversions that ocur during photosynthesis.
Kinetic-chemical-potential
potential-chemical-kinetic
light-kinetic-potential
light-potential-chemical
In order to maitain homeostatic conditions, living organisms must have a constant input of energy as measured by the function of Gibbs Free energy.
Which of gthe following strategies will be jeopardize maintenance of homeostatic conditions.
Spend energy to import energy rich reactants
Spend energy to export energy poor products
Place the organism in a closed system in order to achieve equilibrium
Link metabolic reactions into a sequential pathway
Membrane-bound organelles have been an important component in the evolution of complex, multicellular organisms. Which of the following best summarizes an advantage of eukaryotic cells having internal membranes?
Eukaryotic cells are able to reproduce faster because of the presence of organelles.
Some organelles, such as mitochondria and chloroplasts, are similar to prokaryotic cells in structure.
Organelles isolate specific reactions, increasing metabolic efficiency
Compartmentalization leads to a higher mutation rate in DNA, which leads to more new species.
Which of the following substances would have the most trouble crossing the membrane by diffusing through the bilayer?
water
oxygen
carbon dioxide
a sodium ion
A unique property of water made possible by adhesion might be:
being the universal solvent
surface tension
being a liquid at room temperature
having a high heat capacity
A scientist is conducting an experiment in which she synthesized uridine triphosphate (uracil) using carbon-14 isoptoes. She then adds the radioactively labeled molecules to the growth medium of a colony if living cells and aloows them to incubate for 24 hrs.
Upon examination, which of the follwoing macromolecules should the scientist expect to be labelled inside the cell?
DNA
RNA
Proteins
Monosaccharides
There are 20 different amino acids that form peptide bonds in proteins.
Which of the following identifies the specific feature that makes one amino acid different from another?
The avrying side chains attached to an alpha carbon atom
The varying side chauns attached to the carbon atom of the carboxyl group
The varying side chains attached to the carbon atom of the amino group
The varying isomeric configurations of the side chains
In organism #1 there is 13% thymine in a molecule of DNA, Determine the percent (%) _____ cytosine.
13%
26%
37%
74%
