Biology  by Bradford
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The Biological Molecules Pub Quiz

Carbohydrates, lipids, proteins and nucleic acids at a general level: quickfire questions, missing vowels, myths, connections and a handout of molecule riddles. No syllabus needed.

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Teacher pages are the quizmaster script and tally sheet. Student pages are the team answer sheet, handout and picture sheet. Both open ready to print, on A4 or US Letter.

The rounds

Biological molecules: the basics, Missing vowels: molecules, Fact or fiction: molecules, Connections: molecules, Carbohydrates and lipids, Who am I? Molecules, Proteins and nucleic acids, Closest wins: molecules, and a handout of riddles. 71 questions in all, about 60 minutes. Every answer is on this page, folded under its round.

Round 1Biological molecules: the basics

Quickfire questions on the four groups of biological molecules and how they are built. ten questions.

  1. What are the four main groups of biological molecules?
  2. Which element do proteins contain that carbohydrates do not?
  3. What is the name for a small unit that joins with others to make a polymer?
  4. What type of reaction joins two monomers and releases a molecule of water?
  5. What type of reaction uses water to break the bond between two monomers?
  6. What is the monomer of a protein?
  7. What is the monomer of DNA and RNA?
  8. Which group of proteins speeds up chemical reactions in cells?
  9. What word describes all the chemical reactions in a living organism?
  10. What is the name for the part of metabolism that builds large molecules from small ones?
Answers
  1. Carbohydrates, lipids, proteins and nucleic acids
  2. Nitrogen
  3. A monomer
  4. Condensation
  5. Hydrolysis
  6. Amino acid
  7. Nucleotide
  8. Enzymes
  9. Metabolism
  10. Anabolism

Round 2Missing vowels: molecules

Vowels removed, spaces moved. Name the biological molecule or process. eight questions.

  1. CR BHY DRT
  2. GL YCG N
  3. HY DRL YSS
  4. TR GLY CRD
  5. PH SPH LPD
  6. CH LST RL
  7. ST RCH
  8. NC LTD
Answers
  1. Carbohydrate
  2. Glycogen
  3. Hydrolysis
  4. Triglyceride
  5. Phospholipid
  6. Cholesterol
  7. Starch
  8. Nucleotide

Round 3Fact or fiction: molecules

Myths and true facts about what we eat and what we are made of. Teams write Fact or Fiction. ten questions.

  1. Fat is bad for you and the body has no use for it.
  2. Humans cannot digest cellulose.
  3. Your liver makes cholesterol.
  4. Hair and nails are made mostly of protein.
  5. A gram of fat stores more than twice as much energy as a gram of carbohydrate.
  6. Oil and water do not mix because lipids are hydrophilic.
  7. Honey is mostly sugar.
  8. Muscles store their spare glucose as starch.
  9. Saturated fats are usually liquid at room temperature.
  10. An enzyme is used up in the reaction it speeds up.
Answers
  1. Fiction. Lipids build membranes, store energy, insulate and carry fat-soluble vitamins and hormones.
  2. Fact. We make no cellulase, so it passes through as dietary fibre.
  3. Fact. Most of the cholesterol in your body is made by your own cells, mainly in the liver.
  4. Fact. Both are built largely from keratin.
  5. Fact. Fat gives about 37 kJ per gram and carbohydrate about 17 kJ.
  6. Fiction. Lipids are hydrophobic, which means they are repelled by water.
  7. Fact. About four fifths of honey is the sugars glucose and fructose.
  8. Fiction. Animals store glucose as glycogen. Starch is the plant store.
  9. Fiction. They tend to be solid, like butter. Unsaturated oils are usually liquid.
  10. Fiction. An enzyme is unchanged by the reaction, so it can be used again.

Round 4Connections: molecules

Four things. What links them? five questions.

  1. Glucose, Fructose, Galactose, Ribose
  2. Starch, Glycogen, Cellulose, Chitin
  3. Adenine, Thymine, Guanine, Cytosine
  4. Keratin, Collagen, Haemoglobin, Insulin
  5. Triglyceride, Phospholipid, Steroid, Wax
Answers
  1. Monosaccharides (simple sugars)
  2. Polysaccharides
  3. The four bases of DNA
  4. Proteins
  5. Types of lipid

Round 5Carbohydrates and lipids

Sugars, starches, fats and oils. ten questions.

  1. Which sugar is the main fuel for cell respiration?
  2. What is the storage polysaccharide in animals?
  3. What is the storage polysaccharide in plants?
  4. Which polysaccharide makes plant cell walls strong?
  5. Name the disaccharide found in milk.
  6. What is table sugar called chemically?
  7. A triglyceride is one glycerol joined to how many fatty acids?
  8. What do we call a fatty acid with no C=C double bonds?
  9. Which lipid forms the double layer of a cell membrane?
  10. Which steroid, found in animal cell membranes, is made in the liver?
Answers
  1. Glucose
  2. Glycogen
  3. Starch
  4. Cellulose
  5. Lactose
  6. Sucrose (glucose joined to fructose)
  7. Three
  8. Saturated
  9. Phospholipid
  10. Cholesterol

Round 6Who am I? Molecules

Three clues, hardest first. 3 points after clue 1, 2 after clue 2, 1 after clue 3. six questions.

  1. Clue 1: I am the monomer of starch, glycogen and cellulose. Clue 2: Plants make me in photosynthesis. Clue 3: I am the sugar in your blood that cells use as fuel.
  2. Clue 1: I contain iron. Clue 2: I sit inside red blood cells. Clue 3: I carry oxygen around the body.
  3. Clue 1: I am a four-ringed lipid. Clue 2: I fit between the phospholipids in animal cell membranes. Clue 3: Too much of me in the blood is linked to heart disease.
  4. Clue 1: I am a protein that is not used up in the reaction I speed up. Clue 2: I break starch down into maltose. Clue 3: You make me in your saliva.
  5. Clue 1: I am made of beta-glucose. Clue 2: Humans cannot digest me. Clue 3: I make plant cell walls strong.
  6. Clue 1: I am a polymer of nucleotides. Clue 2: I am a double helix. Clue 3: My four bases are A, T, G and C.
Answers
  1. Glucose
  2. Haemoglobin
  3. Cholesterol
  4. Amylase
  5. Cellulose
  6. DNA

Round 7Proteins and nucleic acids

Amino acids, enzymes, DNA and RNA. ten questions.

  1. Name the bond that joins two amino acids.
  2. How many different amino acids are used to make the proteins of living things?
  3. What is the name for a protein losing its shape when heated or put in extreme pH?
  4. Which protein carries oxygen in red blood cells?
  5. Which protein gives strength to skin and tendons?
  6. Which sugar is found in DNA?
  7. Which base pairs with adenine in DNA?
  8. What is the shape of a DNA molecule?
  9. Which molecule carries a copy of a gene from the nucleus to the ribosome?
  10. What type of bond holds the two strands of DNA together?
Answers
  1. Peptide bond
  2. 20
  3. Denaturation
  4. Haemoglobin
  5. Collagen
  6. Deoxyribose
  7. Thymine
  8. A double helix
  9. mRNA (messenger RNA)
  10. Hydrogen bonds

Round 8Closest wins: molecules

Estimation questions. Nearest team wins the point. Doubles as the tiebreaker. four questions.

  1. Roughly what percentage of an adult human's body mass is water?
  2. If you stretched out the DNA in one human body cell, how long would it be, in metres?
  3. How much energy does a gram of fat release when respired, in kilojoules?
  4. About how many base pairs are in one full set of human chromosomes?
Answers
  1. About 60%
  2. About 2 m
  3. About 37 kJ
  4. About 3.1 billion

HandoutMolecule riddles

Little brain-teasers about biological molecules. Best as the handout teams chip away at all quiz long. eight questions.

  1. I am found in butter and bacon fat, and I have no double bonds. What am I?
  2. I am a long chain of beads, folded up, and I do most of the work in cells. What am I?
  3. I have a head that loves water and two tails that hate it. What am I?
  4. Joining monomers releases me, and splitting them uses me up. What am I?
  5. Plants move me round their phloem, and you stir me into your tea. What am I?
  6. I write the whole book of life using just four letters. What am I?
  7. A cow can digest me with help from microbes, but you cannot. What am I?
  8. Camels carry me in their humps because I store more energy per gram than glycogen. What am I?
Answers
  1. A saturated fat
  2. A protein
  3. A phospholipid
  4. Water
  5. Sucrose
  6. DNA
  7. Cellulose
  8. Fat (a lipid)

How it runs

  1. Open it in the builder. The running order loads ready to go. Swap, add or drop rounds, or draw a round's questions again.
  2. Present it or print it. Present puts each round on the projector in 16:9 with quizmaster notes. Print gives the script, team answer sheets, a picture sheet and a tally sheet on A4 or US Letter, with no projector needed.
  3. Score it. Teams swap sheets, mark, and each plays one joker to double a round. The scores page reveals the leaderboard from last place up.

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