The followings are a check list to help you prepare for the midterm.  You should be able to find information from your lecture notes, the textbook, and CD-ROM activities. 

 

Chapter 8

• be able to differentiate sexual and asexual reproductions
• describe how prokaryotes reproduce by binary fission.
• recognize the structure of eukaryotic chromosomes.
• distinguish between (a) somatic cells and gametes, (b) diploid cells and haploid cells, and (c) autosomes and sex chromosomes.
• describe and differentiate different stages of the cell cycle.
• list the phases of mitosis and describe the events characteristic of each phase.
• recognize the phases of mitosis from diagrams and micrographs.
• describe some factors that control the cell cycle
• explain how cancerous cells are different from healthy cells.  
• list the phases of meiosis I and meiosis II and describe the events characteristic of each phase.
• recognize the phases of meiosis from diagrams and micrographs.
• describe key differences between mitosis and meiosis.
• explain why sexually reproducing organisms have advantages in increasing genetic variation.
• explain the consequences of nondisjunction during meiosis.
• describe the consequences of chromosome abnormality by giving examples.

 

Chapter 9

• recognize following terms: hybrids, the P generation, the F₁ generation, and the F₂ generation.
• distinguish between the following pairs of terms: genotype vs. phenotype, dominant allele vs. recessive allele, and heterozygous vs. homozygous. 
• apply Mendel’s principle of segregation to predict patterns of inheritance of a single characteristics.
• apply Mendel’s principle of independent assortment to predict patterns of inheritance in a dihybrid cross.
• know examples of incomplete dominance, multiple alleles, pleiotropy and polygenic inheritance.
• predict the patterns of sex-linked inheritance in humans.
• predict the patterns of inheritance of linked genes. 
• identify recombinant phenotype (genotype) in linked gene inheritance.
• predict physical distances of linked genes from recombination frequencies.
• explain why marriage between close relatives increase the probability of producing children with genetic disorders.
• distinguish between different types of genetic testing (carrier testing, diagnostic testing, prenatal testing, newborn screening, and predictive testing).
• understand some social and ethical issues associated with genetic testing.

 

Chapter 10

• Describe differences and similarities between DNA and RNA.
• Describe the process and recognize major players of DNA replication.
• Describe the main process of transcription and translation and where in the cell they are performed.
• Predict mRNA sequence from DNA sequence.
• Predict amino acid sequence from mRNA sequence using the codon table.
• Describe the processing of eukaryotic RNA.
• Recognize the components of the translation machinery and their structure.
• Describe the step-by-step process of translation.
• Describe the major types of mutations and their possible consequences.
• Recognize common properties of viruses that threaten human health.

 

Chapter 11

• Describe the regulatory mechanisms of prokaryotic gene expression.
• Describe the role of chromosome structure in eukaryotic gene regulation.
• Describe transcriptional and post transcriptional control of eukaryotic gene regulation.
• Explain how selective gene expression yields a variety of cell types in multicellular eukaryotes.
• Describe the roles of cell-to-cell signaling and signal-transduction pathways in development.
• Explain how viruses, proto-oncogenes, and tumor-suppressor genes can each contribute to cancer.
• Describe the processes of therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning.
• Describe the potential of therapeutic cloning in modern medicine.

 

Chapter 12

• Describe the process used to produce many copies of a desired gene.
• Explain how polymerase chain reactions (PCR) work and how this process is useful to biologists.
• Explain how genetic markers are used for identification of disease alleles and for DNA fingerprinting.

 

In addition, you should be able to recognize the following human diseases:

AIDS, Down syndrome, hypercholesterolemia, cystic fibrosis, Huntington’s disease, hemophilia.

 

Here is a tentative scheme (the actual proportion may change):

 

<Multiple choice questions> 1 point = 1 question

Chapter 8         12 points

Chapter 9         9 points

Chapter 10       10 points

Chapter 11       9 points

Chapter 12       2 points

Chapters 1-7    10 points (Five questions will be exactly same as midterm questions.  The other five will be similar to midterm questions but will ask you slightly different aspects.)

 

<Write-up questions>

Chapter 9         3 points (This will be a genetic problem)

Chapter 9/12    5 points (I will announce the question on the last day of class.)

 

Total                60 points

 

Good luck! ☺