A Comprehensive Guide to AP Biology

A Comprehensive Guide to AP Biology

by Brian Lin

Table of Contents:

About the new AP Bio test (pages 2-3)

I. Evolution (pages 4-8)

II. Biochemistry (pages 8-16)

III. Cells, Membranes, Transport (pages 16-22)

IV. DNA Replication and Cell Cycle (pages 23-28)

V. Ecology and Behavior (pages 29-37)

VI. Plants and Photosynthesis (38-47)

*Second Semester Google Doc found here.

Important disclaimers:

All diagrams are copyrighted by Pearson Education inc. and used for NONPROFIT

EDUCATIONAL purposes under Section 107 for educational Fair Use.

This review guide is NOT meant for resale and should not be sold since it contains

copyrighted materials from Pearson.

Units I-VIII are kinda organized by target according to the green targets sheet and should

prepare you for each test (they worked for me at least). Of course, teachers may have

changed stuff so... yeah. Units IX-XII, I just used teacher handouts and diagrams. I've still

included friends' notes for your convenience though.

If you want to make changes/edit/etc. check with your peers/teacher/etc. make a

comment (top right hand corner next to the blue "Share" button).

If you have biology questions, DO NOT flood my FB with messages! Instead please

ask your classmates, FB group, teacher, etc. FIRST before asking me online because

I'm going to be insanely busy this fall with college apps/cello/cross

country/NHS/school/SAT/etc. During school is completely different though, and I'll be

more than happy to explain stuff to the best of my ability if I have the time.

Q. What's with the random Pokemon, man? A. Wynaut?

Q. Seriously, why? A. So, in V. Ecology and Behavior, you learn about `kinesis' in the pill

bug lab (fun fact: 2 years ago, Justin Doong came to my backyard to look for pill bugs

before the school started buying them last year). Well, kinesis just happens to be a

Pokemon move... hence the pictures.

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About Me... and the new AP Bio test.

My name is Brian Lin, if you don't already know me, then you sure will 70-80 pages later. Anyways, I like playing the cello, fooling around, and complaining about things in review guides. So have fun, learn a lot, and eat a lot (the pre-AP test breakfast is AMAZING!) However, don't eat so much that you end up throwing up during the test and losing time (one of my friends lol).

On the AP Bio Test...

Alright, so my year (2014) got kinda screwed over... they happen to be changing the AP Bio and AP Chem tests the year we take them. Oh well... that's life, isn't it? Anyways, you can see for yourself how the AP Bio test went last year:

The mean went up, but the percentage of 5s went down (down down down down...). DO NOT BE WORRIED! I will explain below what happened and what you can do to be prepared! Now here's what the graders/College Board had to say about this (typos included):

1,200 college students were administered redesigned AP Biology exam questions this spring; their work was scored at the AP Reading. College professors also took the full redesigned AP Biology exam themselves & evaluated each question to set the pts needed for 2,3,4,5. Most AP Biology students earned enough pts to get a 2,3,4, but very few scored well enough on the grid-ins and free-response to score a 5. AP Biology grid-in questions require students to use mathematics to solve biological problems. The avg score on these was very low: 36%. Multiple-choice: last year, students earned 63% correct on average; this year, 61% FRQs require students to "explain," "describe," "justify" their content knowledge. Very low scores on avg.ow.ly/mmH0O. What % of AP Bio students earned 0 pts on these FRQs? Q5 (polypeptides): 45%. Q6 (organelles): 49%. Q8 (hormone-signalling): 54%. AP Bio students performed well on Q3 (evaluating fossils of a transitional species) and Q7 (effect of alcohol on urine production). I have posted a 6-page summary of the AP Biology exam results on the AP Biology Teacher Community. College professors attest that AP Biology cousre & exam are now the gold standard in college-level Biology.

Kudos to AP Biology teachers. Previously, the free response questions (FRQs) were only 25% of the total score. Now, the FRQs make up 50% of the total score. And if you combine that with the fact that ~50% of students got 0s on about half of their FRQs, there you go. So, my explanation for the drop in 5s is that kids in other schools (aka not Stevenson) had NO CLUE how to write FRQs. FRQ tip: Points are cumulative only! Therefore, you can have tons of incorrect stuff but they can't take points off for that (obviously, this is different on other AP tests). "Somehow, maybe just due to the stress of the test, kids saw that message, and thought the

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proctor would tell them when to move on to the grid-in problems. So time ran out, and they didn't do them!" -Some teacher guy Apparently some people just didn't do the grid-ins because... I have no idea really. Luckily, all of us were told to work backwards on the MC, starting with the grid-ins (and the harder normal MC) so I (at least) did not have that problem. Grid-ins are not really that hard though. Even though you can't guess like a MC question, there's quite a bit of room for rounding errors and stuff. And the math is pretty easy (though tedious). Also, time was not an issue for me (that's for me though, one of my friends had to throw up in the middle and didn't finish...). I had enough time left after the MC to check over about half of them. On the FRQs, I was able to read through all of them (and my responses). In fact, make sure you leave plenty of space to add stuff later since you will have time to go back and stuff more key words in. Also, it's important to realize that the test has shifted away from memorization/content-based and more towards skill/application/understanding (for example, they will have questions where they will explain a lab/concept for you and then ask you about it). Your teachers will say corny stuff about how understanding stuff is important (the whole Big Idea thing). They're actually right. Seriously, I thought it was really cheesy but it helped A LOT. Big disclaimer here: The AP Biology test content NO LONGER coincides (completely) with the SAT Bio test. You will have to self study around half of the material. Sucks since the College Board makes both but haven't updated the SAT subject test. Also, there's a lot less curve than physics, which sucks. Take SAT PHYSICS or CHEM! Please! (Plus Princeton doesn't take Bio for engineering majors). Seriously, I regret not taking SAT Physics. Also, do not pay for test-prep books/ tutoring unless they're based on/have actually taken the new test. I bought the Barron's book last year and it was a waste of money considering entire chapters were irrelevant (and useless) and covered stuff we didn't need to know (all the while leaving other stuff out). Just ask someone who took the new test.

Reasons Why You Shouldn't Be Scared

All three teachers are very qualified (from personal experience + friends' experience) A lot less homework than before (notes are not mandatory- more college style) Teachers/we now know what to look out for (no old tests to look at) I think David Chen got like a 100% on the 1st semester final. That should inspire you. The test was `easier' but the curve was a lot tougher. This should be fixed (I hope). The percentages do not reflect Stevenson! You will be fine if you work hard!

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I. Evolution

1. Evolution by Natural Selection

? Okay, let's start off with a population (bunch of same species in same place) ? There's going to be genetic variation. Why?

1. Random mutations. Point mutations (insert/delete/frameshift) 2. Crossing over and recombination (getting back together) 3. Law of Independent Assortment (Metaphase I 2 dif. orientations) 4. Random fertilization (You learn about all this stuff later, I just added it here since this is a big FRQ topic) ? These different individuals will be selected for or against by selective pressures ? Any developed traits that help you survive are known as adaptations ? Those that survive to reproduce will create offspring and change the allele frequency of the population in favor of the `fit' allele (allele = version of a gene) ? Divergent evolution branching out (becoming "more different") ? Convergent evolution evolving similarly (explains analogous structures in 5.) ? Population a group of individuals of same species that can interbreed and create fertile offspring (so a herd of deer or something) ? Species a group of populations whose members can interbreed and produce fertile offspring (all the deer herds in the world)

2. Hardy-Weinberg

? What's it say? Allele frequency and genotype frequency remain constant!

? But for this to apply, we'll need 5 conditions:

1. Really big population/sample size

2. No mutations

3. Random mating

4. No natural selection

5. No migration/gene flow (ie no adding/removing organisms)

Equation 1:

P + Q = 1

Equation 2:

P ? + 2P Q + Q? = 1

P is the dominant allele frequency. Q is the recessive allele frequency. So if you have mice that can either have brown hair or black hair (where hair color is the gene with 2 different alleles). Then % brown (P) + % black (Q) = 100% (1). Should make sense.

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 P? is the frequency in the population with homozygous dominant allele. 2PQ is the frequency in the population with heterozygous both alleles. Q? is the frequency in the population with homozygous recessive allele. Since the mice get one allele from each parent, you multiply the allele frequencies together. Since P = chance of getting the dominant allele and Q = chance of getting the recessive allele, you multiple P * P to get the chance of getting homozygous (2) dominant alleles and so on. ? Genotype Set of genes it carries; 2 alleles. ? Phenotype Expressed traits; characteristics. (Straight hair) So if brown is dominant, a brown mouse can have the genotype Bb (one brown and one black) but still have the phenotype brown since that allele takes over.

3. Microevolution

? What is microevolution? Changes in allele frequencies within a population. ? There are 4 main causes for microevolution:

1. Random mutations 2. Natural/Artificial Selection 3. Genetic drift 4. Gene flow ? Genetic drift is changing allele frequencies by changing the sample size 1. Bottleneck (natural disasterrandom drop in gene pool, depends on survivors) 2. Founder (random group leaves and `founds' new population, depends on founders) ? Gene flow and migration is when you transfer alleles from one population to another

4. Macroevolution

? What is macroevolution? Formation of a new species (speciation) ? How does this happen?

1. Start off with parent species 2. Add a reproductive barrier 3. Wait some time 4. Divergent groups can't produce fertile offspring 5. Voil?! Macroevolution ? There are two main modes of speciation ? Allopatric speciation geographic/physical isolation Examples would be mountains, long distances, oceans, etc.

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