WJEC Biology 1 Key Questions
B1a – Health, Response and Regulation
How could you carry out an experiment to calculate how much energy is in different foods?
What happens if you take more energy in from your diet than you use?
What information can you find on the nutrition label on a packet of food?
What are the health effects of having too much sugar, fat and food additives in your diet?
What are the health effects of drinking too much alcohol and smoking?
What are the factors that can increase a person’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes?
How are new drugs tested?
What are the ethical issues related to testing new drugs, including the use of animal testing?
Which receptor organs detect changes in light, sound, touch and chemicals?
How are messages passed around the central nervous system?
What is phototropism?
What is gravitropism?
Why do animals need to keep conditions inside their bodies constant?
How are the levels of glucose in the blood kept constant?
How does type 1 diabetes affect a person’s ability to regulate the amount of glucose in their blood?
How is type 1 diabetes diagnosed?
How does the body keep temperature constant?
Why is the maintenance of glucose levels in the blood and temperature described as negative feedback?
B1b – Monitoring the Environment, Energy Flow and Nutrient Transfer
Why do the needs of food for humans need to be carefully balanced against the needs of wildlife?
How does the Government monitor and reduce the effect of human development on the environment?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of intensive farming over traditional farming methods?
How could the Government deal with the crisis created by the infection of cattle with TB from badgers?
How can biological and physical indicators be used to measure the levels of pollution in streams and the air?
How can pesticides, such as DDT, sprayed on crops affect other organisms in the environment?
What are the effects of the process of eutrophication on ponds and lakes?
Why is the Sun described as the ultimate source of energy for all food chains?
What are the different stages in a food chain called?
How is energy lost between different stages in a food chain?
What can a pyramid of numbers or a pyramid of biomass show about a food chain?
What are the different stages in the carbon cycle?
What role do microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi play in the carbon cycle?
What are the different stages in the nitrogen cycle?
What role do microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi play in the nitrogen cycle?
B1c – Inheritance and Variation
What chemical are genes made from and where are genes found?
What do we call different versions of the same genes?
How can genetic profiling be used to compare two DNA samples?
When might genetic profiling be carried out?
What are the ethical issues surrounding genetic profiling, including the identification of genetic diseases?
What happens to the number of chromosomes when gamates (sperm and eggs) are formed?
Why are offspring not identical to their parents?
How do X and Y chromosomes determine the gender (boy or girl) of a baby?
What do the terms dominant, recessive, homozygous and heterozygous mean?
How do you use a Punnett square to show the genotype of offspring?
What do the terms F1 generation, F2 generation and selfing mean?
How did Gregor Mendel carry out experiments to determine how genetic information was passed on from organisms to their offspring?
What happens during the process of genetic modification?
What would be the benefits of using it to make crops resistant to herbicides and pesticides using genetic medication?
What are the ethical issues surrounding the use of genetic modification and why does the development of this technology need to be tightly controlled?
What are some examples of characteristics controlled by genes, the environment, and are there any characteristics that are controlled by both?
How does sexual reproduction introduce variation in the population and why does asexual reproduction reduce it?
What are mutations and what can cause them to happen?
How do people inherit cystic fibrosis and
B1d – Variety of Life, Adaptation, Competition and Evolution
What are the five kingdoms that organisms were grouped into?
How can organisms be classified into different groups?
What are the three domains that organisms are now grouped into and why has this changed been made?
Why is binomial nomenclature (using the scientific name) used to identify organisms?
How can organisms be adapted to suit the conditions they live in?
How can the numbers of one type of organism affect the numbers of another?
What resources do organisms compete for?
How do predation, disease and pollution affect the numbers of organisms?
What is meant by the term survival of the fittest?
What is the theory of natural selection, as proposed by Charles Darwin?
What happens if a species of organism can’t adapt and evolve as quickly as its environment?
How can microorganisms become resistant to antibiotics and how can rats become resistant to the poison warfarin?