Download Forensic Science Final Review

Forensic Science Final Review
Name: _____________________________
Instructions: Answer the following questions on YOUR OWN PAPER! Remember that it is important to do your
best job on this Study Guide because your Final Exam is worth 10% of your TOTAL GRADE for the class! The Final
Exam is a comprehensive test!
Question Category:
Crime Scenes
Review Questions in this category:
What are the three steps taken by the first officer on the scene?
2. What is a chain of custody?
3. What is a standard sample?
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Physical Evidence /
Trace Evidence
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When observing evidence, what is comparison?
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What is an individual characteristic?
What is a class characteristic?
How can you determine the direction the glass was broken?
What is Locard’s Exchange Principle and how is this principle important to
forensic science?
Explain how you can determine the difference between the entry and exit
points of a piece of glass that has been hit by a projectile.
Explain how glass cracks. In your answer, include radial and concentric
fractures.
Given two glass fractures located side-by-side, explain how you can
determine which fracture occurred first
A hit-and-run scene would have what type of physical evidence?
Define fingerprints.
Who was the first person to suggest fingerprints could be used to identify a
person and describe the criminal incident that led to his belief.
Who wrote the book, “Finger Prints”?
List two things that led to fingerprints being used over the Bertillon System
in the United States.
State the three principles of fingerprinting.
What are the two things on a finger that are deposited on a surface in order
to produce a latent print?
What are two ways criminals have tried to hide their fingerprints?
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9.
Fingerprints
What are the three most basic types of crime scene recording methods? Name
and describe them.
What are the parts that need to be included on all crime scene sketches?
What does the fourth amendment state and why are its contents important to
police investigation?
Why is recording a crime scene accurately important? Name two reasons in your
answer.
What is the main prerequisite needed to properly photograph a crime scene?
Describe the lead investigator’s job in evaluating a crime scene.
What would the correct packaging be for charred material found at a crime
scene? Why would you use this type of packaging?
What would the correct packaging be for bloodstained material found at a crime
scene? Why would you use this type of packaging?
Would a fiber found at a crime scene mostly contain DNA evidence?
Why should the member of a crime scene team separate witnesses?
What methods are typically used to permanently document a crime scene by
CSI’s?
What is the value of class physical evidence?
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Blood Evidence
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What are the three main patterns and their sub groups?
What is the difference between a radial and an ulnar loop?
Define Latent print, Visible print and Plastic print
Name the techniques used to recover latent prints on hard, non-porous
surfaces. List some examples of hard, non-porous surfaces.
Name the techniques used to recover latent prints on soft, porous surfaces.
List some examples of soft, porous surfaces.
What is “lifting” a print.
Have any two people been found to have the same identical fingerprints?
When are fingerprints formed?
Besides identification, why is having the friction ridges that make your
fingerprints important?
What are minutiae points and how are they important to the individuality of
fingerprints?
What is the most common type of fingerprint pattern? The rarest type of
pattern?
What is AFIS?
What substance, used to recover latent fingerprints gives a white print after
processing?
What substance, used to recover latent fingerprints, gives a purple print
after processing?
Describe EACH of the EIGHT fingerprint patterns.
Define delta
Define minutiae.
Know the correct % distribution of loops, arches, and whorls found in the
general population.
What causes skin to form fingerprints?
Fingerprints are which type of evidence?
Define plastic fingerprints and know how they can be collected and
identified.
Iodine fumed fingerprints on paper appear what color?
When using cyanoacrylate, what special conditions or apparatus is needed? (
a fuming chamber and a source of heat) Remember our lab?
What is the one thing that can make blood an individual characteristic?
Where is the DNA located in the blood?
What test do you use to determine if a substance is blood?
What chemical is used to locate blood that is not seen with the human eye?
What is the name of the process that makes the invisible blood visible?
List the four types of blood along with the antigens and antibodies that
would be found together.
What happens when an antigen and the same antibody are brought
together?
Explain the test that would be used to determine blood type.
What do you look for to determine if the blood sample is from a male or
female?
Who was the scientist that won a Nobel Prize for his work with blood typing?
What two parts of the blood have the most forensic information?
What are antibodies and where are they found?
What is a luminol test? What would a positive reaction look like?
What is the Kastle-Meyer Color Test? What would a positive reaction look
like?
What is a Hemastix test? What would a positive reaction look like?
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DNA Evidence
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Forensic Toxicology
and Drugs
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What is the precipitin test? What does it test for?
What material does the acid phosphatase test look for?
What does a blood stain that has impacted a site at LESS than 90 degrees
look like?
What shape does a blood stain that has impacted a site at a 90 angle have?
Which end of a bloodstain always point in the direction of travel?
What is agglutination? When does it happen?
What is serology?
What is hemoglobin and why is it important?
What is exsanguination?
What is asphyxiation?
What is the difference between low velocity, medium velocity, and high
velocity blood spatter? Include one cause of each in your answer.
Type AB blood contains what antigens and antibodies?
An individual who is type O has what type of antigens and antibodies?
What is the string method is used to find at a crime scene?
Backward spatter produced by a gunshot wound can tell
investigators___________________
The removal of an object or surface that was located between the origin of
blood and the target surface during the bloodstain deposition leaves behind
_________________________
The skeletonized perimeter of a bloodstain can be used to
interpret__________________________.
Generally, bloodstain diameter ___________ as height increases.
What are DNA polymerases?
Explain what a polymerase chain reaction technique accomplishes.
Define Tandem repeats.
What does RFLP stand for?
What are RFLPs?
What are restriction enzymes?
What was the first type of DNA testing approved in the United States?
What are the three main steps to DNA fingerprinting that is similar to all
systems?
What is the difference between RFLPs and STRs?
What is the difference between flat gel electrophoresis and capillary
electrophoresis?
How should you package DNA evidence?
What is the process called in which DNA makes a copy of itself?
What is a nitrogenous base? Where are they found in DNA?
What does “DNA” stand for?
What are the base pairing rules? How do they contribute to DNA’s ability to
be replicated?
What is CODIS and how does it help forensic scientists?
Describe the process of PCR and explain why it is important to Forensic
Science.
How are RFLP’s used in Forensic Science?
What is the sugar component of DNA called?
What is the backbone of the DNA structure composed of?
What is the difference between a central nervous system stimulant and a
central nervous system depressant? Include in your answer one example of
each.
Forensic Pathology &
Entomology
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Define toxicology.
What are some of the effects of anabolic steroids on the body?
What will taking a depressant do to your heart rate?
How does Cannabis differ chemically from other narcotics?
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What is rigor mortis?
What is livor mortis?
What is algor mortis?
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Forensic
Anthropology
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Hair and Fiber
Evidence
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How does manner of death differ from the cause of death? What are the
five categories of manners of death?
What is the name of the person who performs autopsies in cases where the
cause of death is questionable?
The rate of cooling of a dead body can be influenced by all BUT
______________________.
What happens to the concentration of potassium in the vitreous humor of
the eye after death?
According to forensic entomologists, which "witness" (insect) is the first to
arrive at the crime scene?
Estimations of the postmortem interval (PMI) using entomological evidence
must take into account __________________
How can investigators determine if a body has been tampered with at a
crime scene?
What is forensic anthropology? What do forensic anthropologists usually
study?
What part of the body would a forensic anthropologist most likely use to
determine height?
What part of the body would a forensic anthropologist most likely use to
determine sex?
What part of the body would a forensic anthropologist most likely use to
determine race?
What is facial reconstruction and how could it be useful to a forensic
scientist?
What are defensive wounds and where would they be likely found?
Forensic odontology refers to the study of _____________________.
What organ produces hair?
What are the three layers of the hair shaft?
What is the layer called that runs down the center of the hair shaft?
What part of the hair is needed to individualize the evidence?
How many hair samples are required for a suspects scalp to provide a good
representative sample?
Which phase of hair growth is characteristic with having the best source of
DNA?
What characteristic needs to be looked at in order to determine the sex of
the person that the hair sample belongs to?
What characteristics does a CSI observe first when looking at hairs and fibers
under a microscope?
What is a natural fiber?
What is a manufactured (synthetic) fiber?
What are three properties looked at when analyzing fibers?
Of the three layers of the hair shaft, which layer is most resistant to chemical
decomposition?
Why is the cortex important in the hair shaft?
What part of the hair shaft contains scales?
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Forensic Psychology
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General
What are the three main classifications of medullae? Sketch them in your
answer.
What is the difference between a natural and synthetic fiber? Which natural
fiber is the most common?
Sketch the three types of scale patterns found on a hair shaft.
Which feature of hair is MOST important in making a species identification?
Pigment granules that impart hair with color are found in the
_________________ of the hair shaft.
In what stage can a hair most readily be removed from the scalp?
The rate of human hair growth per month is__________________
What type of evidence is hair without a follicular tag?
Name the protein that hair is made up of.
What structures are necessary for calculating the medullary index?
Name the cuticle pattern of human hair.
In which direction do hair cuticle scales point?
Know the origin of all types of natural fibers.
Know the basic characteristics of synthetic fibers.
How do forensic scientists determine if a fiber is hair or not?
Define fiber
Define yarn
Define textiles
Who was Lombroso, and what was his argument?
When a forensic profile is being created about an individual, what aspects about
that person’s crime must be assumed to remain unchanged?
Describe William Sheldon’s three body types and tell which he believed to most
likely be a criminal.
Describe Kohlberg’s stages of moral development.
Define Modus Operandi.
Define Signature.
Define Staging.
Contrast the two types of criminals (according to the FBI method) – Organized
and Disorganized.
Compare psychosis to psychopathy.
1. What is the definition of forensic science?
2. Name and Describe the first procedure used to distinguish one individual
from another individual.
3. What was the oldest laboratory in the US?
4. What are 4 reasons for the rapid increase in the number of crime labs?
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What do the following stand for and what are they used for (Hint: they are all
databases)?
a. IAFIS
b. CODIS
c. NIBIN
d. PDQ
e. SICAR
How do you obtain reference samples?
What did each of these famous people (in the field of forensics) do?
a. Francis Henry Galton
b. Alphonse Bertillon
c. Karl Landsteiner
d. Edmond Locard
e. Sir Alec Jeffreys
f. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
8. What is an expert witness and how do they differ from a lay witness?
9. What are the basic metric units for mass, volume, and length?
10. What is a physical property? Give three examples of these types of properties in
your answer.
11. What is a chemical property? Give three examples of these types of properties in
your answer.
12. Who was Wayne Williams and why was his case important to Forensic Science?
13. Who was William West and why was his case important to Forensic Science?
14. Who developed the system known as anthropometry?
15. Who undertook the first definitive study of fingerprints as a method of personal
identification?
16. Which agency maintains the largest crime laboratory in the world?
17. Which unit has the responsibility for the examination of body fluids and organs
for the presence of drugs and poisons?
18. What is an eyewitness?
19. Define perception.
20. What do Forensic Scientists do in court?
21. Define direct evidence.
22. Define circumstantial evidence
23. Define trace evidence.