The third question is of this second kind: it requires you to make a leap from recognizing the heart to knowing the general
characteristics of the circulatory system.
Before you start answering questions within a figure-based group, try to figure out what is being depicted and remember what biological phenomena are associated with it. For instance, if you recognize a drawing of mitochondria, chances are you'll be asked about cellular respiration. If the drawing specifies a molecule or organism, keep in mind the general
characteristics of the class of molecules or organisms it represents. If you're not sure what the image or graphic in the figure group represents, you can probably pick up hints from the answer choices. Scanning the questions above and seeing the words “atrium,” “ventricle,” and “circulating the blood” provides pretty strong clues that the image shows a heart. Be careful, though: test writers love to seed misleading answers among the correct ones.
In case you're wondering, the answers to questions 5, 6, and 7 are E, B, and E, respectively. We'll cover more on the heart and circulation in the chapter on Animal Structure and Function.
Experiment-Based Group Questions
The SAT II Biology uses group questions based on experiments, biological situations, and data to measure your scientific reasoning and laboratory skills. There is no standard appearance for the experiments; the data can be presented in paragraphs, tables, and/or graphs.
These groups can be the most intimidating part of the SAT II Biology test: they often describe scenarios that are more complex or advanced than what you've been exposed to in biology class or labs. But stay confident: the two main purposes of these group questions are to test how you understand scientific data and how you apply knowledge of biological principles to this data. Any unfamiliar terms or experimental techniques mentioned in the groups usually just mask simple concepts addressed by the individual questions. In fact, some questions might simply ask you to interpret the data. For these questions you won't have to think much about the concept at all.
|
Questions 8–10 refer to the following experiment and results obtained.
Dialysis bags are semipermeable membranes, allowing the transport of small molecules while prohibiting larger ones. In an experiment, students filled dialysis bags with different concentrations of sucrose solution and placed them in a beaker of distilled water. The bags were each weighed before being placed in the beaker. After two minutes, they were removed from the beaker, dried, and weighed again.
|
|
| 8. |
Which dialysis bag experiences the largest percent change in mass? |
|
(A) |
0.2 M sucrose |
|
(B) |
0.4 M sucrose |
|
(C) |
0.6 M sucrose |
|
(D) |
0.8 M sucrose |
|
(E) |
1.0 M sucrose |
|
|
| 9. |
If the 0.6 M sucrose solution bag was left in the beaker for four minutes, all of the following occur EXCEPT |
|
(A) |
mass of the dialysis bag increases to more than 30.1 g |
|
(B) |
water travels down its concentration gradient |
|
(C) |
decrease in the bag's molarity of sucrose |
|
(D) |
sucrose leaks into the beaker |
|
(E) |
volume of water in the beaker decreases |
|
|
| 10. |
A glucose molecule is small enough to pass through the bag. If glucose was substituted for sucrose in the dialysis experiment above, by what process does it cross the membrane? |
|
(A) |
Osmosis |
|
(B) |
Active transport |
|
(C) |
Simple diffusion |
|
(D) |
Facilitated diffusion |
|
(E) |
Transpiration | |
