British Biology Olympiad 2004 Exam
British Biology Olympiad 2004 Exam
PART A QUESTIONS
Instructions:
• Put your name and school / college on both the Part A answer sheet
and on the Part B test paper.
• When you have completed and checked your tests return all the test
materials to the invigilator.
GOOD LUCK!
Cell Biology.
1. If an enzyme solution is saturated with substrate, the most effective way to obtain
an even faster yield of products would be to:
A. 50
B. 12
C. 10
D. 2
E. 1
A. 3.4 µm
B. 34 µm
C. 420 µm
D. 0.42 µm
E. 0.042 µm
4. Which of the biochemical processes listed below take place outside the
mitochondrion?
5. Which one of the following organelles is especia lly rich in hydrolytic enzymes?
A. chloroplasts
B. mitochondria
C. ribosomes
D. peroxisomes
E. lysosomes
6. Where in the mitochondrion do the reactions of the electron transport chain occur?
A. primary level
B. secondary level
C. tertiary level
D. quaternary level
E. all structural levels are equally affected
1. ATP
2. NADP
3. enzymes
4. cytochromes
12. A flask of nutrient medium was inoculated with a suspension of yeast cells.
Every two hours a sample of the culture was taken in order to estimate the growth
of the population. The sampling continued after the population had reached the
carrying capacity of the environment.
13. Which one of the following statements about nucleic acids is true?
A. DNA and RNA are isomers because they have the same elemental
composition.
B. Adenine and guanine are purines.
C. Uracil and thymine are pyrimidines with each containing two hexagonal
rings.
D. The sugar-phosphate backbone is held together with hydrogen bonds
E. In any sample of DNA the total amount of adenine plus guanine is equal
to the total amount of cytosine plus uracil.
14. The water potential of three adjacent plant cells was measured as follows:
Cell A (-300kPa); Cell B (-400kPa); Cell C (-500kPa). Which one of the
following statements is true?
16. When radioactively labelled amino acids are introduced into the cells of the
salivary glands of a mammal, the precursors of the amylase which are
subsequently synthesised by the cells are detected first in the
A. Golgi apparatus
B. Messenger RNA
C. Nucleolus
D. Rough endoplasmic reticulum
E. Zymogen granules
17. Select from the list the enzyme that catalyses the following reaction:
A. decarboxylase
B. dehydrogenase
C. hydrolase
D. phosphorylase
E. transferase
18. Which of the following most accurately describes the net directional movement of
molecules when a red blood cell is placed in a hypotonic solution (one of high
water potential)?
1. The rhythmic beating of cardiac muscle in the mammalian heart is initiated by the
mg glucose mg glucose
excreted excreted
per 100 per 100
cm3 of cm3 of
glomerular glomerular
filtrate filtrate
mg glucose
excreted mg glucose
excreted
per 100
per 100
cm3 of
glomerular cm3 of
glomerular
filtrate
filtrate
glucose in blood plasma glucose in blood plasma
(mg per 100 cm3 ) (mg per 100 cm3 )
4. Injection of insulin into diabetics leads to a lowering of their blood sugar levels by
6. The following are all associated with the transport of carbon dioxide by blood
except:
A. carbaminohaemoglobin
B. carboxyhaemoglobin
C. carbonic anhydrase
D. chloride shift
E. hydrogencarbonate
7. All of the following are associated with inspiration in a mammal except:
8. Which of the following tubes present in the human body is lined with ciliated
epithelium?
A. oviduct
B. artery
C. vein
D. nephron
E. intestine
9. Human blood passes from the inferior vena cava into the right atrium of the heart
during diastole as a result of:
10. Ovulation does not occur during pregnancy in the human female because
A. the follicles are not influenced by the level of progesterone in the blood
B. the corpus luteum and later the placenta produce large amounts of
progesterone
C. the corpus luteum degenerates as luteinising hormone is no longer
produced
D. the embryo produces hormones which directly retard the production of
FSH
E. menstruation does not occur during pregnancy
11. The force for the formation of glomerular filtrate in the kidney is provided by
1. sweating
2. blood redirected nearer to the surface of the body due to closure of shunt
vessels
3. panting
4. reducing the thickness of the layer of fat
A. 1 & 2 only; B. 1,2 & 3; C. 1 & 3 only; D. 2 & 3 only; E. 3 & 4 only.
A. Guard cells
B. Cortical collenchyma cells
C. Spongy mesophyll cells
D. Palisade mesophyll cells
E. Epidermal cells
CO2
uptake
CO2
production
4. The most important process in raising water from the roots to the leaves of tall
trees in the xylem is:
A. osmosis
B. root pressure
C. loss of water vapour in transpiration
D. mass flow
E. evaporation of water from mesophyll cells
A. cellulose
B. cutin
C. lignin
D. pectases
E. suberin
6. One pollen mother cell may produce four germinating pollen grains, each with
two male nuclei and one tube nucleus. How many meiotic divisions are necessary
to bring this about?
A. none
B. one
C. three
D. four
E. twelve
7. Trees may be damaged by animals which rub against them, wearing away a strip
of bark right around the tree trunk and exposing the xylem. The tree will then
A. die quickly, because the leaves are deprived of food and water
B. die quickly, because fungi enter the trunk through the wounds
C. continue to grow, because bark always regrows to cover a wound
D. die slowly, because the roots cannot replenish their food reserves
E. die slowly, because the leaves will wilt when deprived of water and
cannot manufacture food.
8. Which of the following effects is brought about by gibberellins but not by auxins?
9. Where in an active chloroplast would you find the highest levels of protons?
A. Stroma
B. Reaction centre
C. Middle lamella
D. Thylakoid membranal space
E. Stalked particles
A. 1 & 2 only; B. 2 & 3 only; C. 3 & 4 only; D. 1,2 & 3; E. 2,3 & 4.
11. Which of the following are required for the light- independent reaction (dark
reaction) of photosynthesis?
1. O2
2. CO2
3. Chlorophyll a
4. ATP
P Q R
A. magnesium nitrogen phosphorus
B. magnesium phosphorus nitrogen
C. nitrogen phosphorus magnesium
D. phosphorus magnesium nitrogen
E. phosphorus nitrogen magnesium
Ethology.
A. taxis
B. habituation
C. sign stimulus
D. instinct
E. kinesis
2. Earthworms come to the surface of the soil at night, but if touched they will
retreat into their burrows. This is an example of:
A. a conditioned reflex
B. learned behaviour
C. a simple innate reflex
D. kinesis
E. territorial behaviour
A. taxis
B. tropism
C. simple reflex
D. learned reflex
E. sign stimulus
4. Features of courtship behaviour include all the following except:
1. Manx cats have no tail. Their phenotype is determined by a single gene with two
alleles, normal and Manx. Crosses between Manx cats yield ratios of 2 Manx : 1
normal. This ratio suggests that:
2. Which of the following do mitosis and the second division of meiosis have in
common?
A. zero
B. 0.25
C. 0.50
D. 0.75
E. 1.00
5. Which one of the following operations with flowering plants would be most likely
to produce the greatest numbers of variations in the offspring?
A. self pollination
B. cross pollination between a pure line and a hybrid
C. cross pollination between two pure lines
D. cross pollination with another species
E. cross pollination between two hybrids
7. A population’s gene pool was found to have remained unaltered for many
generations. Which of the following conditions must have existed in the
population?
8. Competition, isolation and selection are thought to be events that take place
during the origin of new species. In which order do these events take place in the
process of speciation?
10. The feature of silky feathers in show fowl is caused by a recessive allele. A pure
breeding bird with normal feathers was crossed with a bird with silky feathers and
all the offspring were normal. The offspring were then allowed to interbreed.
Which of the following statements would be true about the F2 generation?
11. In a disputed paternity case, the following blood groups were identified:
Mother Group AB
Baby Group A
Mr Happy Group O
Mr Go-Lucky Group AB
Ecology.
1. The non- living parts of an ecosystem are called the abiotic factors.
2. Respiratory and excretory losses account for most of the energy lost in a
food chain.
3. Saprophytic bacteria and fungi are called detritivores.
4. Biological niche and microhabitat are terms with the same biological
meaning.
5. In succession, the term climax refers to woodlands which have become
extinct due to natural disasters.
5. Two bird species feed on small invertebrates lodged in bark crevices on the same
tree but they do not compete for the food resources because of different food
preferences and differing locomotor patterns in foraging behaviour. Each of these
bird species occupies:
time/h
Which one of the following shows the order in which the species are distributed
down the shore?
A. x, y, z
B. y, z, x
C. z, x, y
D. y, x, z
E. x, z, y
A. all of them;
B. 1, 2, 3 & 4 only;
C. 2, 3, & 4 only;
D. 1, 2, 4 & 5 only;
E. 1, 2, 3, & 5 only.
11. Which of the following statements about primary productivity are correct?
12. 75g of a soil was heated at 80OC to a constant mass of 37g. It was then heated at a
much higher temperature to a constant mass of 27g. Which of the following
represents the percentage of humus in the original sample of soil?
A. 13.3%
B. 15.2%
C. 27.0%
D. 36.0%
E. 49.3%
Biosystematics.
A. symbiotic
B. heterotrophic
C. flagellated
D. pathogenic
E. saprobiontic
2. Two plants which belong to different families must also belong to different
A. classes
B. genera
C. orders
D. phyla
E. superfamilies
4. Mycorrhizae are:
A. daisy
B. dandelion
C. nettle
D. wheat
E. buttercup
A. mosses
B. club mosses
C. horsetails
D. conifers
E. algae
8. Which of the following statements about pairs of taxonomic groups is/are true?