Biology  by Bradford
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IB Biology Theme A Pub Quiz: Unity and diversity

Theme A as a pub quiz for your class: review rounds on these subtopics, mixed with pure-fun rounds so it feels like a night out and not another test. Opens at SL; switch to HL in the builder to add the higher level cards.

Print teacher pagesPrint student pagesOpen in the builder to change it

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.

What it covers

IB Biology at SL, with HL cards when you switch the level: A1.1 Water, A1.2 Nucleic acids, A2.1 Origins of cells, A2.2 Cell structure, A2.3 Viruses, A3.1 Diversity of organisms, A3.2 Classification and cladistics, A4.1 Evolution and speciation and A4.2 Conservation of biodiversity.

The running order

nine rounds and a handout of riddles. Review rounds are drawn from these topics 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 dry seed can sit in a packet for years, then sprouts within a day or two of being watered. Why does nothing happen until the water arrives?
  2. True or false: some viruses keep their genes as RNA, so DNA is not the genetic material of all living organisms. Explain.
  3. A new organism is found at a deep-sea vent. Before anyone puts it under a microscope, what does cell theory let you predict about it?
  4. Identical twins carry the same genes. Why are they never identical in every trait?
  5. A bodybuilder spends years building huge muscles. Why is this not evolution, even if his children grow up strong too?
  6. Cheetahs are so alike genetically that skin grafted between unrelated cheetahs is not rejected. Which level of biodiversity is low, and why does it matter?
Answers
  1. Its metabolism needs water (enzymes and their substrates work dissolved in water, the medium for life's reactions)
  2. False (viruses are not considered living, so all living organisms still use DNA)
  3. It is made of one or more cells (cell theory says every organism is built from cells, so this one must be too)
  4. The environment also shapes traits (and a few new mutations arise during life)
  5. The change is acquired, not inherited (it is not in his genes, so it cannot be passed on)
  6. Genetic diversity (with little variation the species is less able to survive disease or change)

Riddle me this

Course terms as riddles. Teams write what it is.

  1. I'm the weak pull between one water molecule's slightly positive end and the next one's slightly negative oxygen. Alone I'm feeble; by the billion I make water sticky. What am I?
  2. I'm a phosphate, a sugar and a base, joined as one. String thousands of me together and you get a gene. What am I?
  3. I'm too small for the light microscope, I come in 70S and 80S sizes, and I build proteins. What am I?
  4. I give every species two names: a capitalised genus, then a lowercase second word, as in Homo sapiens. What am I?
  5. We do different jobs, grasping, flying and swimming, but share one bone plan inherited from a common ancestor. What are we?
Answers
  1. Hydrogen bond
  2. Nucleotide
  3. Ribosome
  4. Binomial system
  5. Homologous structures

Quickfire

Short recall from the same topics.

  1. Unequal sharing of electrons between atoms
  2. Pull of δ⁻ O on δ⁺ H of another molecule
  3. Water molecules sticking to each other
  4. Genetic material of all living organisms
  5. Nucleic acid usually single-stranded
  6. Monomer of DNA and RNA
  7. Image size divided by actual size
  8. Line showing a real length on an image
Answers
  1. Polar covalent bond
  2. Hydrogen bond
  3. Cohesion
  4. DNA
  5. RNA
  6. Nucleotide
  7. Magnification
  8. Scale bar

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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