Biology  by Bradford
support
Free · ready-made · present or print

IB Biology Theme B Pub Quiz: Form and function

Theme B 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: B1.1 Carbohydrates and lipids, B1.2 Proteins, B2.1 Membranes and membrane transport, B2.2 Organelles and compartmentalization, B2.3 Cell specialization, B3.1 Gas exchange, B3.2 Transport, B3.3 Muscle and motility, B4.1 Adaptation to environment and B4.2 Ecological niches.

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. I'm the atom at the heart of every sugar, fat, protein and strand of DNA, building chains, branches and rings. What about my bonding makes that possible?
  2. Two amino acids share the same amine group, carboxyl group and alpha carbon, but one dissolves in water and the other does not. Which part differs?
  3. Shake me and my kind in water and we line up tail to tail in a double sheet, no cell needed. What about us makes that happen?
  4. Ribosome, vesicle, nucleus, cell wall: which is the odd one out, and why?
  5. 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?
  6. A flatworm has no lungs or gills and gets all its oxygen through its skin. Why could a mouse never do that?
Answers
  1. Four covalent bonds per atom (to other carbons and to other atoms, in any arrangement)
  2. The R-group (the only variable part, and it sets each amino acid's properties)
  3. We're amphipathic (hydrophobic tails hide from water inside; hydrophilic heads face it on both sides)
  4. The cell wall (not an organelle: it lies outside the plasma membrane, not a discrete subunit in the cell)
  5. Different genes are expressed in each of us (switched on), so we make different proteins
  6. It is too bulky (its SA:V is too low and the distance to its centre too great for diffusion alone)

Riddle me this

Course terms as riddles. Teams write what it is.

  1. I join two small molecules into one, and leave a drop of water behind every time. What am I?
  2. I have a nitrogen-capped end, a carboxyl end and a side group that makes me one of twenty. Chain me up and you get a protein. What am I?
  3. I'm buried deep in the bilayer, often poking out of both sides, and salt water won't wash me off. What am I?
  4. I spin broken cells so fast that their parts settle out in layers. Without me, nobody could study a mitochondrion on its own. What am I?
  5. 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?
Answers
  1. Condensation
  2. Amino acid
  3. Integral protein
  4. Ultracentrifuge
  5. Differentiation

Quickfire

Short recall from the same topics.

  1. Element that can form four covalent bonds
  2. Shared pair of electrons between two atoms
  3. Linking of monomers that releases water
  4. Monomer of a polypeptide
  5. Atom bearing the R-group of an amino acid
  6. Basic −NH₂ end of the backbone
  7. Two-layer sheet of amphipathic molecules
  8. How O₂ and CO₂ pass between phospholipids
Answers
  1. Carbon
  2. Covalent bond
  3. Condensation
  4. Amino acid
  5. Alpha carbon
  6. Amine group
  7. Phospholipid bilayer
  8. Simple diffusion

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.

More ready-made quizzes

All the ready-made pub quizzes · Build your own pub quiz