AP Biology Unit 4 Pub Quiz: Cell Communication and Cell Cycle

What it covers

AP Biology : Unit 4: Cell Communication and Cell Cycle.

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. Skip me and mitosis would hand each daughter cell only half a genome. I happen in S phase and double every chromosome's DNA. What am I?
2. Testosterone, a steroid, slips straight through a muscle cell's plasma membrane. Where must its receptor be, and why?
3. What would happen in a cell if a mutant G protein could no longer break down its GTP to GDP?
4. Adrenaline makes heart cells beat faster and liver cells release glucose. How can one hormone tell different cells to do different things?
5. One hormone molecule binds outside the cell; inside, I turn that into thousands of activated enzymes, each switching on many more. What am I?
6. Why won't a cell start anaphase while even one chromosome is still unattached to the spindle?

Riddle me this

Course terms as riddles. Teams write what it is.

1. I'm the signal molecule that fits my partner protein like a key in a lock. When I bind, the message starts. What am I?
2. I sit on a cell's surface or inside it, waiting for one particular molecule. When it binds, I change shape and pass the news on. What am I?
3. I'm the relay race inside a cell that turns one message at the membrane into a response, protein by protein. What am I?
4. I'm made inside the cell after a hormone docks outside. cAMP and calcium ions are my best-known kinds. What am I?
5. I tag other proteins with phosphate groups, flicking them on one after another down a cascade. What am I?

Quickfire

Short recall from the same topics.

1. Any molecule a receptor binds
2. General name for a signal-binding protein
3. Channels linking adjacent animal cells