Final Exam — Instructions
Overview
This is the scored final exam for the course. It is cumulative: its questions reach all eight course objectives, from the practice of science in Week 1 to gene regulation, mutation, and biotechnology in Week 15. It is given in Week 16, the finals week, which has no new material.
The exam has 40 questions, and every question counts the same. Most of them, 30 in all, are multiple choice with one best answer. Five ask you to select every choice that fits, and five are true/false statements to judge. Fifteen questions are on the easier side, 21 are of medium difficulty, and 4 are harder. Every question rehearses a skill you already practiced in the weekly quizzes, the lecture tutorials, the Biology Lab & Inquiry, and the paired practice final.
Coverage and scope
The questions were drawn from the course's question bank, and every one of the eight objectives appears at least once. The draw does not spread evenly across the weeks, though. Here is what this form actually contains, first by the week each question's material comes from and then by objective.
| Week | Topic | Questions | Objectives assessed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | Photosynthesis | 1 | Objective 4 (1) |
| 9 | The cell cycle and mitosis | 6 | Objective 5 (5), Objective 3 (1) |
| 10 | Meiosis and sexual reproduction | 4 | Objective 5 (3), Objective 1 (1) |
| 11 | Mendelian genetics | 5 | Objective 6 (4), Objective 5 (1) |
| 12 | Patterns of inheritance | 6 | Objective 6 (5), Objective 5 (1) |
| 13 | DNA structure and replication | 7 | Objective 7 (5), Objective 2 (2) |
| 14 | Gene expression | 4 | Objective 7 (4) |
| 15 | Gene regulation, mutation, and biotechnology | 7 | Objective 8 (6), Objective 7 (1) |
| Objective | What the questions ask you to do | Weeks that teach it | Questions on this exam |
|---|---|---|---|
| Objective 1 | Describe the practice of science and evolution as biology's unifying framework | 1 | 1 |
| Objective 2 | Explain the chemistry of life and relate each macromolecule's structure to its function | 2, 3 | 2 |
| Objective 3 | Compare cell types, relate organelles to their jobs, and explain membrane transport and cell size | 4 | 1 |
| Objective 4 | Explain energy, enzymes, cellular respiration, and photosynthesis as ordered, located processes | 5, 6, 7 | 1 |
| Objective 5 | Describe the cell cycle, mitosis, and meiosis, and how variation arises | 9, 10 | 10 |
| Objective 6 | Predict the outcomes of genetic crosses as probabilities, from Mendel's rules to their extensions | 11, 12 | 9 |
| Objective 7 | Explain DNA's structure and replication and trace gene expression from template to protein | 13, 14 | 10 |
| Objective 8 | Describe gene regulation, classify mutations, and explain the core biotechnology tools | 15 | 6 |
Read the two tables together. Thirty-nine of the 40 questions come from the material of Weeks 9–15, and one comes from Week 7. No question is drawn from the Weeks 1–6 or Week 8 material directly. Cell division and variation (Objective 5, 10 questions), inheritance (Objective 6, 9 questions), and DNA and gene expression (Objective 7, 10 questions) together carry 29 of the 40, so put most of your review there. Week 15 alone carries 7 questions, as many as Week 13.
The early objectives still count. Five questions assess Objective 1 through Objective 4, and four of them sit inside a later week's material. Week 1's practice of science returns in the meiosis week. Week 2's bonds and Week 3's nucleic acids return inside Week 13's look at DNA. Week 4's cell structures return in the mitosis week, and the chloroplast's stages come from Week 7 itself. The habits from the first half, structure determines function and the order-and-location habit, run through almost every question on the exam.
These notes map the skills the exam assesses. The questions themselves are drawn from the bank and are not listed here.
Instructions
- Attempts: one. The final is a single scored attempt.
- Time limit: none. There is no time limit, so take the time you need while the exam is open.
- Window: the exam opens in Week 16. Your instructor sets the open and close times in Canvas, and the exam locks when it closes.
- Navigation: the questions appear one at a time, and you cannot go back to an earlier question once you move on. Settle each question before you continue.
- Order: the choices within each question are shuffled for each student.
- Materials: a few questions ask for a short calculation, such as a percentage from Chargaff's rules, a probability from a cross, or a 2ⁿ count of gametes, so scratch paper or a basic calculator can help. Know the start codon AUG and the three stop codons; any other codon meaning a question needs is given in the question. Your instructor will tell you which other materials, if any, are allowed. AI tools are not permitted.
- After you submit: your result is recorded. The keyed choices are not shown, because the questions come from a bank shared with other course assessments.
Academic integrity
This is an individual, scored assessment, and the work must be your own. That means no help from another person, no shared or posted questions, and no AI tools of any kind. The final confirms that you personally can read a structure for its job, put a process in order, and work a quantitative pocket such as a cross or a base percentage.
The honest way to prepare is the rest of the final's bundle: the study guide, the exam-prep tutorial, and the practice final. They rehearse the same skills with fresh variants, and nothing in them appears on this exam.
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