The exam is composed of two sections:

1. Multiple choice: 50% of score, 1hr and 30 mins time, 60 questions long.

2. Free response questions (FRQs): 50% of score, 1hr and 30 mins time, and 6 questions long.

Multiple Choice

The questions will ask you to…

• Explain biological concepts, processes, and models

• Analyze diagrams, flow charts, and other visual representations

• Use the scientific method

• Perform mathematical calculations to analyze data

• And support scientific claims with evidence

Free Response Questions

This section includes two long questions and four short ones. The two long questions will each require about 25 minutes to answer. The shorter ones will take up around 10 minutes each. The questions in this section will ensure you can…

• Interpret and evaluate results from an experiment

• Graph and analyze data

• Understand the principles and procedures of lab investigations

• Predict the causes or effects of a change in a biological system

• And analyze a visual representation of a biological phenomenon

Exam Topics

• Unit 1 - The Chemistry of Life (8%–11% of exam score): The structure and chemical properties of water, the makeup and properties of macromolecules, and the structure of DNA and RNA.

• Unit 2 - Cell Structure and Function (10%–13% of exam score): Cellular components and functions of those components, cell interaction with its environment, the cell membrane structure and function, cell regulatory mechanisms like osmosis and selective permeability, and cellular compartmentalization.

• Unit 3 - Cellular Energetics (12%–16% of exam score): The structure and function of enzymes, the role of energy in living systems, the processes of photosynthesis, the processes of cellular respiration, and molecular diversity and cellular response to environmental changes.

• Unit 4 - Cell Communication and Cell Cycle (10%–15% of exam score): The mechanisms of cell communication, signal transduction, cellular responses, feedback mechanisms, and the events in a cell cycle.

• Unit 5 - Heredity (8%-11% of exam score): The process and function of meiosis, the concepts genetic diversity, mendel’s laws and probability, non-mendelian Inheritance, and factors affecting inheritance and gene expression.

• Unit 6 - Gene Expression and Regulation (12%-16% of exam score): The roles and functions of DNA and RNA, the mechanisms of gene expression, how genotype affects phenotype, mutations, genetic diversity, natural selection, and genetic engineering and biotechnology.

• Unit 7 - Natural Selection (13%-20% of exam score): Evidential support for evolution and common ancestry, the mechanisms of natural selection and speciation, environmental and human-caused factors in evolution, charting species ancestry through phylogenetic trees and cladograms, extinction, and models of the origin of life on Earth.

• Unit 8 - Ecology (10%-15% of exam score): Communication and responses to environmental changes, energy flow within and across ecosystems, factors in the growth, density, and success of populations, factors in community and ecosystem dynamics, invasive species, human interaction, and environmental changes.

Units to Study (by Highest Number of Questions Possibly Being on the Exam)

1. Natural Selection (13%-20%)

2. Cellular Energetics & Gene Expression and Regulation (12%-16%)

3. Ecology & Cell Communication and Cell Cycle (10%–15%)

4. Cell Structure and Function (10%–13%)

5. Heredity & The Chemistry of Life (8%–11%)

What to Bring on Exam Day

To be continued…