SOLUTION

SBL 100 QUIZ 1: Monday 24th January 2015

Each question carry (+) 2 point for a correct answer and (-) 1 point for an incorrect answer

1. One of the routes through which metabolic pathways evolved considering a certain useful
compound X was in abundance is the following:
a) The cell evolves to produce a protein that synthesizes more of the compound X
b) The cell evolves to produce a protein that synthesizes a useful compound Y similar to
X
c) The cell evolves to produce a protein that uses X to produce another useful
compound Y
d) The cell evolves to produce multiple proteins that synthesizes X and several more
useful compounds

2. Insects are different from arthopods because

a) A mutation in the Ubx gene in insects resulted in a protein that inhibits a gene
that is required for legs to form
b) A mutation in the Ubx gene prevents insects from growing legs from their abdominal
segments
c) Arthopods grow legs from their abdomen segment due to a mutation in the Ubx gene
d) Insects grow legs due to the absence of a mutation in the Ubx gene

3. Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium is considered to be important in evolutionary studies

because
a) It expresses alleles in a binomial equation
b) It constraints the sum of allele frequencies equal to 1
c) Allele frequencies remain the same from generation to generation unless some
agent acts to change them
d) Allele frequencies remain the same from generation to generation even when some
agent acts to change them

4. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a technique used in molecular biology to amplify a

single copy or a few copies of a piece of DNA across several orders of magnitude,
generating thousands to millions of copies of a particular DNA sequence. The method
relies on thermal cycling, consisting of cycles of repeated heating and cooling of the
reaction for DNA melting and enzymatic replication of the DNA. A small segment of
double stranded DNA obtained from fossil studies was amplified using a PCR with 25
cycles. The number of copies obtained on completion is
a) 8388608
b) 67108864
c) 33554432
d) 16777216

5. In a certain population having the alleles A and a, and let NAA be the number of
individuals that are homozygous for the A allele (AA), NAa be the number that are
heterozygous (Aa), and Naa be the number that are homozygous for the a allele (aa). If
NAA = 100, NAa = 30 and Naa = 70, then Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium holds if
a) P2 = 0.320625
b) q2 = 0.200625
c) pq = 0.48875
d) none of these
6. Different antibiotics act against different cellular functions to eventually kill the
microorganism causing infection. Penicillin acts against
a) Protein synthesis
b) Cell wall synthesis
c) DNA synthesis
d) Ribosome function

7. Dr. Carl Woese proposed the 3 domains of life Archaea, Bacteria and Eukarya as opposed
to the 5 kingdoms proposed by Dr. R. Whittaker. One of the reasons why the 3 domains
of life has received acceptance is:
a) It reduce the number of categories of the biological species from 5 to 3
b) It classified the biological species based on more observable characteristics
c) It is based on the slow rate of molecular evolution made the ribosome sequence
d) It used the 25S rRNA for classification of biological species

8. The classification of biological species according to Copeland had the following problem
a) It was polyphyletic: siblings may be separated based on the color of the eye
b) It was polyphyletic: Siblings having different eye color were put in the same class
c) It was monophyletic: Siblings and parents were put into different classes
d) It was monophyletic: Siblings and parents were always put into the same class

9. Cells are able to maintain an asymmetric membrane because of the following reason
a) The inner to outer leaf migration of lipid molecules is reversed by an ATPase
b) The inner to outer leaf migration of lipid molecules is balanced by inverse diffusion
c) The inner to outer leaf migration of lipid molecules is much slower than the rate of
lateral diffusion
d) The inner to outer leaf migration of lipid molecules is very slow

10. The G-protein is one that mediates the amplification of the signal received from, for
example adrenalin onto an adrenergic receptor, to a burst of cyclic AMP. This happen by
the following route:
a) The binding of the gamma subunit to adenylyl cyclase
b) The binding of the alpha subunit to adenylyl cyclase
c) The binding of the beta and gamma subunits to adenylyl cyclase
d) The binding of alpha, beta and gamma subunits to adenylyl cyclase