Chapter 5 – Heredity

Directed Reading Guide

Directions: Please complete the following reading guide as you read Chapter 5. Use your best writing skills (e.g. complete sentences, correct spelling, etc.)

Section 1 – Mendel and His Peas

(pg. 106)

1.  How does heredity explain why you don’t look like a rhinoceros?

2.  What did Gregor Mendel study in the monastery garden?

3.  Complete the “activity” in the margin of pg. 106 in the space below.

(pg. 107)

4.  Why did Mendel choose to use garden peas for his investigation into how traits are passed on (be sure to include 3 reasons)?

5.  How can a plant self-pollinate?

(pg. 108)

6.  What are three of the characteristics that Mendel chose to study and the corresponding traits for each of them?

7.  What are true-breeding plants?

8.  How did Mendel control which pollen would fertilize which plants?

9.  What is the difference between self-pollination and cross-pollination?

(pg. 109)

10.  Look at Figure 6. What happened when Mendel crossed plants that had round seeds with plants that had wrinkled seeds (include the term “first generation” in your answer)?

11.  For each characteristic, Mendel called the trait that always appeared and the trait that seemed to disappear .

12.  Mendel then allowed the first generation of self-pollinate. What were the results of the second generation?

13.  What always happened when the first generation of Mendel’s plants was allowed to self-pollinate?

(pg. 110)

14.  What was the procedure that Mendel had done to help him explain his results, which no one had done before?

15.  Look at Mendel’s results. Complete the table below.

Characteristic / Dominant Trait / Recessive Trait / Ratio
Flower Color / 705 Purple
Seed Color / 2,002 Green
Seed Shape
Pod Color
Pod Shape
Flower Position
Plant Height

16.  What is the dominant-to-recessive ration pattern for each characteristic?

(pg. 111)

17.  Define the following terms:

Gene-

Allele-

Genotype-

Phenotype-

18.  Read through “How to Make a Punnett Square” and answer the question.

(pg. 112)

19.  Read all of pg. 112 -113. Figure 8 shows a Punnett square for a self-pollinating, first generation, purple plant. What are the alleles that are contributed by both the male and female parts of the plant?

20. What is the probability that this scenario will produce a purple flower? A white flower?