IB Biology D1.2 Pub Quiz: Protein synthesis

What it covers

IB Biology at SL, with HL cards when you switch the level: D1.2 Protein synthesis.

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. DNA has 4 bases and proteins use 20 amino acids. Why can't codons be just two bases long?
2. Mice given a jellyfish gene for a fluorescent protein glow green. Which feature of the genetic code makes this possible?
3. True or false: every amino acid has exactly one codon.
4. Counting the stop codon, how many mRNA bases does it take to code for a polypeptide 100 amino acids long?
5. An mRNA codon reads AUG. What anticodon does the tRNA that pairs with it carry?
6. A DNA template strand reads TACGGA. What mRNA sequence is transcribed from it?

Riddle me this

Course terms as riddles. Teams write what it is.

1. Three letters on one end, an amino acid on the other: I ferry my cargo to the ribosome and match it to the message. What am I?
2. I'm three bases long, one word in the messenger's sentence, and I spell out a single amino acid. What am I?
3. I come in a large part and a small part, I read the message, and I'm where amino acids are strung into chains. What am I?
4. I copy a gene into RNA, reading one DNA strand as my guide, all inside the nucleus. What am I?
5. I'm why GGU, GGC, GGA and GGG all mean glycine: many spellings, one meaning. What am I?

Quickfire

Short recall from the same topics.

1. Copying a gene's base sequence into RNA
2. Enzyme that builds mRNA along a gene
3. DNA chain that mRNA is complementary to