AP Biology Unit 3 Pub Quiz: Cellular Energetics

What it covers

AP Biology : Unit 3: Cellular Energetics.

The running order

nine rounds and a handout of riddles. Review rounds are drawn from this topic each time you open the quiz, so two classes never get the same paper, and every review round can be redrawn in a click.

1. Riddle me this review
   Course terms as riddles: "I have a head that loves water and two tails that hate it…" Teams write what it is.
2. Close-up fun
   A tiny zoomed-in patch. What's the full picture?
3. Fact or fiction fun
   Myths and true-but-weird facts. Teams write Fact or Fiction.
4. Think it through review
   Scenarios, odd ones out, true or false and why, puzzles: questions to reason through. Give teams a little longer.
5. Films in science-speak fun
   A film plot, described like a research abstract. Name the film.
6. Who am I? Scientists fun
   Three clues, hardest first. 3 points after clue 1, 2 after clue 2, 1 after clue 3.
7. Missing vowels: course terms review
   Your key terms with the vowels taken out.
8. Funny animal noises fun
   YouTube clips of animals making ridiculous noises. Screen off, listen, guess, then watch the reveal.
9. Closest wins fun
   Estimation questions. Nearest team wins the point. Doubles as the tiebreaker.

A taste of the questions

Think it through

Scenarios, odd ones out and true or false and why, from AP Biology.

1. Why does the Krebs cycle grind to a halt within minutes when a poison blocks only the electron transport chain?
2. A newborn baby's brown fat lets protons leak back into the mitochondrial matrix without passing through ATP synthase. What happens to its ATP yield, and why is that useful?
3. What would happen to the Krebs cycle if the pH inside a mitochondrion's matrix suddenly dropped by several units, and why?
4. I wait at the very end of the electron transport chain to catch the spent electrons. Add a couple of protons and I become water. What am I?
5. Odd one out: Krebs cycle, glycolysis, electron transport chain, oxidative phosphorylation. Which one, and why can a red blood cell still use it?
6. A potted plant is shut in a dark cupboard for a few days. Which would run short first in its chloroplasts, CO₂ or NADPH, and why?

Riddle me this

Course terms as riddles. Teams write what it is.

1. I'm the pocket on an enzyme where the reactant fits, shaped for just one kind of molecule. What am I?
2. I'm the hill a reaction has to climb before it gets going, and enzymes lower me. What am I?
3. I'm no protein, maybe a zinc or magnesium ion, but some enzymes can't do a thing without me tucked inside. What am I?
4. I'm a second docking spot on an enzyme, away from where the reaction happens. Bind to me and the whole enzyme changes shape. What am I?
5. I'm a tiny turbine set in a membrane: protons rush through me, I spin, and out comes the cell's energy currency. What am I?

Quickfire

Short recall from the same topics.

1. General name for a protein catalyst
2. Region of an enzyme where substrate binds
3. Reactant an enzyme acts on