Information about the Bio 284a midterm

The midterm for Bio 284a is Sat Oct 19^th from 2-4 pm in Talbot College Rm. 348. The makeup exam is on Thursday Oct 24^th from 7-9 pm in WCS 240. If you need to write the makeup, you will be asked to provide your reason for writing the makeup on the sign-up sheet that is always distributed during an exam. For example, you will provide your name, student number, signature, and in the space provided you might write “conflict with Bio 283a”. If, for privacy reasons, you don’t wish to write a personal reason for taking the makeup on a sheet that is distributed around the class, just indicate this on the sign up sheet and contact me by email.

I have spoken with several students and given my permission to write the makeup. I sincerely want to accommodate students facing a variety of conflicts with this exam time. However, I have to stress that you must provide me with a legitimate reason for writing the makeup exam – feeling unprepared on Saturday morning is not a legitimate reason for writing the makeup. If you have not spoken with me or sent me an email to which I have responded, and are not sure about the legitimacy of your request, please contact me as soon as possible.

The format of exam is true/false and multiple choice questions. You will be required to fill in a Markex sheet for computerized marking, so please bring an HB pencil to the exam.

At this point in the course, we have described the origin of life on earth, and discussed the broad patterns of diversification of life and our approach to classifying and defining groups of organisms. So, try to organize your approach to the material around this concept of diversification and adaptation. As I said in class, use the lecture material as your guide. Concepts and information stressed in class will be stressed on the exam. Information in the course handbook that was never mentioned in class will not appear on the exam. Try to focus on the important core ideas and don’t get hung up on details that, while not trivial, are beyond the scope of the course. For example, I will not ask you to provide me with the nitrogenous compounds produced and degraded during the cycling of nitrogen. However, I expect you to know some of the organisms involved, and the importance of nitrogen cycling. I will not ask you to answer questions about specific elements and structures in the life cycle of bryophytes. However, I expect you to know about the alternation of sporophyte and gametophyte generations, and how this differs in more modern plants….

In general, try to focus on:

1) the characteristics that define the 5 kingdoms. How do we know whether or not something is an animal, or a plant etc….

2) characteristics that represent specific adaptations that led to diversification of a group (e.g. modifications that allowed for the invasion of terrestrial habitats etc.)

3) important events in the geological time scale that had major effects on the course of the history of life on earth e.g. mass extinctions, emergence of new groups, major changes in land masses etc.

4) fundamental differences between eukaryotes and prokaryotes

5) how we classify organisms. What defines a monophyletic, paraphyletic or polyphyletic group? What definitions do we use to group organisms into species?

If you have any questions, I will be checking my email all day Thursday, and will be on campus all day Friday (after 10:00 am) in the Collip building. If possible, send me an email Thursday and we can arrange a time to meet. Good luck with your studying!