Download Study guide for Forensics Midterm

Study guide for Forensics Exam
Spring 2015
For multiple choice: There will be 45 on the test.
Ch. 1
What is forensic science?
What is Locard’s principle?
What kind of work do the different areas of the crime lab do?
Why do they separate witnesses at the crime scene?
What determines an expert witness?
Ch. 2
What are some of the things the first officer to arrive a crime scene does?
What needs to be included in a crime scene sketch?
What types of things need to be taken down in the notes?
Be familiar with the procedure of securing and processing a crime scene
Why are reference samples important? Where do they come from?
Autopsy terms: rigor mortis, livor mortis, algor mortis
What types of things can affect algor mortis?
What should an investigator do is objects have been moved in a crime scene?
Ch. 3
Different types of databases: CODIS, NIBIN, IAFIS
Ch. 8
If given a blood type, be able to tell what antigens are on the surface of the RBC
and what antibodies would be in the plasma.
Be able to tell how blood typing is done – what is added to what?
Be able to do a Punnett square if given blood types of parents or children
Ch. 9
Where does a person’s DNA come from?
What do DNA restriction enzymes do?
How many different nitrogen bases does DNA have?
What is PCR? What does it do?
Be able to give the complementary strand of DNA if given the other half (ex.
GGCCTTAA)
Gel electrophoresis – how it works
Where DNA can be found in a crime scene
Ch. 10
Three parts of hair shaft and what is important about each area
How is the medullary index calculated?
What part of hair is used for DNA analysis?
Stages of hair growth
Where is the color pigment found in hair?
collecting hair and fiber evidence
classifications of cuticle and medulla (animal vs. human)
What kinds of tests are used to evaluate fibers?
Ch. 14
Types of ridge patterns – most common, least common
Basis of Henry numerical system
Types of latent print techniques and what surfaces they are used for
What are plastic prints?
Be able to explain what the following minutae look like – spur, eye, island, delta,
Bridge
Does anyone have identical prints to one another?
Essays:
1. You will be given 3 scenarios and you will have to decide what the errors are in
the scenario.
2. You will be given two other questions, one on DNA and one on blood.