Some information about Exam 2

Material on this exam focuses on what has been covered since the last test, but there are some questions on earlier material, especially on the areas that people had problems with. These are noted on the web page that has the key to the first exam ( Click here to go to that page ); be sure to study them.

The new material you will be tested on focuses on things you've been asked to do for homework, the concepts covered in the toucan phylogeny assignment, and materials we've discussed in lab. These are based on the "lecture" material on the web and the textbook section on the origin of life. Here are a few topics that I guarantee will be on the exam and some other hints on things to be sure to study well:

• You will be asked to provide a clear, complete written explanation of why derived traits can provide evidence for phylogeny but primitive traits can not.
• You will be asked to come up with the best supported phylogeny based on some data (as you did in lab manual ch. XII questions 1-3)
• You will be asked to give a written description of the relationships shown in a phylogenetic tree as you did for homework #7 and in your toucan paper
• You will be asked to identify characters that either support a phylogeny or show convergence, and explain the relationship they support or where they evolved, as you did for your toucan paper.
• In homework #8, many of you did not explain why different areas of DNA evolve at different rates or why it is important to use DNA that evolves at a certain rate for a phylogenetic study. Be sure you can do this for the exam!
• Remember that different people get somewhat different homework assignments; be sure to study ALL of them. This is especially important with regard to homework #6 on lab manual chapter IX for which different groups had questions on different topics (for the other homeworks, different groups had different questions but all groups got the same topic.)
• When you are studying material we've discussed in lab, remember that old labs are archived so you can go back and read the discussions for your lab and for the other two labs. In some of my comments during lab I've tried to point out what the main points and areas to be sure to study further are; you should definitely look at those to see the kinds of thing that are likely to turn up on the exam.

Click here to return to the lecture index.