IB Biology B2.3 Pub Quiz: Cell specialization

What it covers

IB Biology at SL, with HL cards when you switch the level: B2.3 Cell specialization.

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 IB Biology.

1. A neuron and I, a liver cell, came from the same person and carry exactly the same genes, yet we look and work nothing alike. Why?
2. In an early embryo, cells at one end become head and at the other tail, though all share the same genes. What tells them apart?
3. Red blood cells last about 120 days, yet you never run out of them. Which cells keep replacing them?
4. Hair grows for years and regrows after it falls out. What does each hair follicle hold that makes this possible?
5. Identical twins can form when a 2-cell embryo splits and each cell grows into a whole baby with its own placenta. What does that show about those cells?
6. True or false: the stem cells in adult bone marrow are pluripotent.

Riddle me this

Course terms as riddles. Teams write what it is.

1. I turn a do-anything beginner into a neuron, a muscle fibre or a skin cell by switching some genes on and others off. What am I?
2. I can divide for ever and grow up into many different tissues, but I haven't decided what to be yet. What am I?
3. I'm a special spot in bone marrow or a hair follicle that keeps a reserve of undecided dividers safe and tells them when to get busy. What am I?
4. I'm part of an embryo only a day or two old, and I can still become anything at all, placenta included. What am I?
5. Double a cell's width and I halve. That's why cells stay small. What am I?

Quickfire

Short recall from the same topics.

1. Process by which cells become specialized
2. Self-renewing unspecialized cell
3. Adult location such as a hair follicle