AP Biology Unit 6 Pub Quiz: Gene Expression and Regulation

What it covers

AP Biology : Unit 6: Gene Expression and Regulation.

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. People with diabetes inject human insulin made by E. coli. How can a bacterium read a human gene and build exactly the right protein?
2. Why does the lagging strand need DNA ligase so much more than the leading strand does?
3. What would happen in a cell if a toxin stopped RNA polymerase binding to promoters?
4. True or false, and why? An mRNA without its poly-A tail is fine, because the tail is just a string of spare A's with no job.
5. I cut out the introns, then choose which exons to keep. Mix them differently and one gene can make a membrane protein and a secreted one. What am I?
6. True or false, and why? RNA polymerase reading a template strand of 3′-TAC-5′ writes the mRNA codon 5′-ATG-3′.

Riddle me this

Course terms as riddles. Teams write what it is.

1. I'm the unzipper: I break the bonds between base pairs and pry DNA's two strands apart at the fork. What am I?
2. DNA polymerase can't start from scratch, so I lay down a short RNA starter for it to build on. What am I?
3. The lagging strand is built from me: short pieces made backward and stitched together later. What am I?
4. Each new DNA molecule keeps one old strand and gets one brand-new partner. Meselson and Stahl proved me with heavy nitrogen. What am I?
5. I'm the stretch of DNA in front of a gene where RNA polymerase lands to start reading. What am I?

Quickfire

Short recall from the same topics.

1. Protein that DNA winds around
2. Small DNA ring apart from the chromosome
3. Each new helix keeps one old strand