Study questions
The following
questions are intended as a guide to help you focus your studying. You
must, however, do more than memorize the answers to each of these questions.
You need to understand the material and be able to discuss the concepts
in your own words. Use active study techniques as much as possible (i.e.,
you must do more than just read over your answers many times). I also recommend
that you take advantage of the learning resources at the end of each chapter
in the textbook, including the associated exercises on the textbook website
(www.essentialbiology.com).
back to Study Aids
Chapter
9: Patterns of Inheritance
1. Gregor Mendel studied inheritance patterns in pea plants. Why were pea
plants such good organisms for his studies? What traits did he examine?
2. What are the main principles of inheritance that Mendel proposed? What
is an allele? a gene? How many alleles do we have for each trait? What is
the principle of dominance? the principle of segregation? principle of independent
assortment?
3. What is a monohybrid cross? a dihybrid cross? Be able to interpret the
results of these crosses in terms of the genotypic and phenotypic ratios of
the offspring, and be able to do these crosses given the genotypes of the
parents, using a Punnett square.
4. Be able to define and use the following terms: genotype, phenotype, homozygous,
heterozygous, dominant, recessive, allele.
5. Be familiar with the types of inheritance that are variations on straight
Mendelian dominance and recessiveness: i.e., incomplete dominance, multiple
alleles, pleiotropy, polygenic inheritance, sex-linkage, and environmental
influences. Give examples for each.
6. Be able to work genetics problems involving monohybrid crosses, dihybrid
crosses, incomplete dominance, multiple alleles, and sex-linked traits.
Review the
genetics problems we did in class, and
practice using the problems at the end of the chapter and on the CD-ROM/textbook
website
(www.essentialbiology.com).
