Download Study Guide for Chapter 4

Study Guide for Chapter 6 – HEREDITY / MEIOSIS
The following questions all concern things we’ve read about in the text, discussed in class,
watched in movies, worked on with models or activities, or completed on worksheets. Please...
- Study the notes we took in class
- Reread chapter selections 10-15 minutes
- Study worksheets we never collected, which you graded yourself in class. EVERY DAY!
NOTE: Please understand that this is not guaranteed to be a complete list of questions or
vocabulary words. If it was discussed in class, notes, worksheets, readings, etc. it
can show up on a test or quiz.
1) What is heredity? What is genetics?
2) What is blending inheritance? Why did we used to believe that blended inheritance was the
way things worked?
3) Who was Gregor Mendel? What did he do that helped genetics?
4) What is cross-pollination? What is self-pollination?
5) What is pollen? What is an ovule?
6) What are the different parts of the female flower? The parts of the male flower?
7) What benefits does self-pollination give you? What drawbacks does self-pollination create?
8) What does true-breeding mean, in terms of self-pollination?
9) What is a characteristic? What is a trait? Are they the same, or are they different?
10) Why did Mendel want to use true-breeding plants?
11) How did Mendel stop plants from self-pollinating?
12) What are first generation plants?
13) What did Mendel discover when he bred purple, true-breeding plants with white truebreeding plants? How did he explain why blended inheritance didn’t work?
14) What does dominant mean? Recessive?
15) What happened when Mendel bred first generation plants to produce a second generation?
16) How does this support his theory of heredity?
17) What is a ratio? What is probability?
18) What is the expected ratio of purple to white flowers when you breed true-breeding purple to
true-breeding white flowers? Why?
19) What is the expected ratio of purple to white flowers when you breed first generation hybrids
to each other? Why?
20) What were Mendel’s conclusions about inheritance? (reread page 179)
21) What are genes? What are alleles?
22) What is the difference between genotype and phenotype?
23) What does homozygous mean? What does heterozygous mean?
24) What is a “hybrid”?
25) Practice using a Punnett Square, and figuring out the ratio of dominant to recessive traits.
26) What is genetic variation? Why is it so important?
27) What does diploid mean? What does haploid mean?
28) What is meiosis? How is it the same as mitosis? How is it different from mitosis?
29) How does meiosis help support Mendel’s understanding of heredity?
30) What is incomplete dominance? Does it fit in with Mendel’s work? How does it help us
explain certain characteristics?
31) What does multigenic/polygenic mean? How can two genes affect the same trait?
32) Can you give some examples of multigenic characteristics, and explain how they work?
33) TOUGH QUESTION: In order for a species to slowly change (evolve), beneficial mutations
must alter DNA in the cells of an organism, which can then pass on those changes to the
next generation. Which cells would be the most effective in helping evolution occur? Why?