Pre-AP Biology & Environmental Science

SOME GENETICS QUESTIONS FOR PRE-AP BIOLOGY & ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

1. If a man has blood group O and a woman has blood group AB, what is the probability that their child
will be blood group O?
A. 0%
B. 25%
C. 50%
D. 100%

2. What feature demonstrates codominance in the inheritance of ABO blood groups?

A. When A antigens and B antigens are present on red blood cells.
B. When A antibodies and B antibodies are present in blood serum.
C. When IA and i alleles are expressed in homozygotes.
D. When IA and i alleles are expressed in heterozygotes.

3. A gene in cattle controls whether horns develop or not. When cattle without horns are mated
together, none of the offspring ever has horns. A male with horns is mated with females without
horns. If half of the offspring have horns and half do not, what is the conclusion?
A. The male is homozygous dominant.
B. The male is homozygous recessive.
C. The male is heterozygous.
D. Only males have horns.

4. Hemophilia is sex-linked and is caused by a recessive allele. A woman’s father has hemophilia, but
her husband does not.
What is the probability of the women and her husband having a child with hemophilia?
Probability of a son having Probability of a daughter
hemophilia having hemophilia
A. 50% 0%
B. 0% 0%
C. 100% 0%
D. 0% 50%

5. Brachydactyly, abnormal shortness of the fingers, was the first human genetic disorder found to be
caused by a dominant allele.
The pedigree below shows a family with affected males ■, unaffected males □, affected females ●
and unaffected females ○.

II

III

IV

V
VI
VII

What are the genotypes of the father and mother in the first generation, using the symbol B for the
dominant alleles and symbol b for recessive allele?
A. bb and BB
B. bb and Bb
C. Bb and BB
D. BB or Bb and bb

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6. If a purple flowered (Pp) and a white flowered pea plant (pp) are crossed, what will the offspring be?
A. 1 : 1 ratio of purple and white flowers
B. 3 : 1 ratio of purple to white flowers
C. 1 : 3 ratio of purple to white flowers
D. All purple flowers

7. What does the genotype XH Xh indicate?

A. A co-dominant female
B. A heterozygous male
C. A heterozygous female
D. A co-dominant male

8. What is a test cross?

A. Crossing a possible heterozygote with a homozygous recessive
B. Any genetic cross to determine genotype
C. Crossing a possible homozygote with a homozygous dominant
D. Crossing a possible heterozygote with another heterozygote

9. Colour blindness in humans is caused by an X chromosome linked recessive allele. In the pedigree
chart below which two individuals must, for certain, be carriers of colour blindness?

II III IV

A. II and IV
B. I and III
C. II and III
D. I and II

10. A woman has a heterozygous genotype for blood group B. She is expecting a baby with a man who is
homozygous Group A. What are the possible blood groups for their baby?
I. Group O
II. Group A
III. Group AB
A. II and III only
B. I and II only
C. I and III only
D. I, II and III

11. What was the original goal of the Human Genome Project?
A. To determine the function of genes
B. To determine the nucleotide sequence of all human chromosomes
C. To determine how genes control biological processes
D. To understand the evolution of species

12. Which of the following blood group phenotypes always has a homozygous genotype?
A. A
B. B
C. AB
D. O

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13. What can be concluded on the basis of the following karyotype?

A. Female with a normal set of chromosomes

B. Male with Down syndrome
C. Female with Down syndrome
D. Male with a normal set of chromosomes

14. In the pedigree shown below, the female, labelled I-2, is a carrier for colour blindness, however
neither male (I-1 or II-1) is colour blind

What is the probability that offspring III-1 will be colour blind?

A. 50%
B. 25%
C. 12.5%
D. 0%

15. Which of the following represents a test cross to determine if phenotype T is homozygous or
heterozygous? (Note: allele T is dominant to allele t.)
A. Phenotype T crossed with another phenotype T
B. Phenotype T crossed with a phenotype T which is homozygous
C. Phenotype T crossed with a phenotype T which is heterozygous
D. Phenotype T crossed with phenotype t

16. What is a karyotype?

A. Maternal and paternal autosomes arranged in pairs.
B. Chromosomes arranged in pairs according to the number of their genes.
C. Chromosomes arranged in pairs according to their size and shape.
D. Chromosomes arranged in pairs according to their size.
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17. What is the cause of sickle cell anaemia?

A. Errors in the translation of mRNA
B. A base substitution mutation in DNA
C. A transcription error that replaces A with U
D. A mutation that leads to glutamic acid instead of valine

18. A gene has three alleles. How many different genotypes can be found for this gene?
A. 3
B. 6
C. 9
D. 12

32. What is the genetic cross called between an individual of unknown genotype and an individual who
is homozygous recessive for a particular trait?
A. Test-cross
B. Hybrid cross
C. Dihybrid cross
D. F1 cross

19. Hypophosphataemia is a disorder involving poor re-absorption of phosphate from glomerular filtrate
in humans. It shows a sex-linked dominant pattern of inheritance as illustrated in the following
pedigree.

Which row in the table correctly identifies the genotypes of individuals 1 and 2?
Individual 1 Individual 2
H h
A. X X XHY
B. Xh Y XHXH
h
C. XY XHXh
D. unaffected affected

20. What is always a difference between the alleles of a gene?

A. Their position on the chromosome
B. Their amino acid sequence
C. The number of codons that each contains
D. Their base sequence

21. What is the locus of a gene?

A. The proportion of the population that have the gene
B. The part of the phenotype that is affected by the gene
C. The position of a gene on a chromosome
D. The predicted effect of natural selection on the frequency of the gene

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22. Which characteristics are used to identify chromosomes when constructing a karyotype?
I. The length of the chromosome.
II. The position of the centromere on the chromosome.
III. The pattern of bands on the chromosome.
IV. The position of the chromosome on the spindle.
A. I only
B. I and II only
C. I, II and III only
D. I, II, III and IV

23. Mendel crossed pure breeding (homozygous) tall pea plants that had coloured flowers with pure
breeding dwarf pea plants that had white flowers. All of the resulting F1 plants were tall and had
coloured flowers.
If Mendel had crossed these F1 plants with a pure breeding strain of dwarf pea plants with coloured
flowers, what proportion of tall coloured plants would be expected in the offspring?
1
A.
4
3
B.
8
1
C.
2
9
D.
16

24. Haemophilia is caused by an X-linked recessive allele. In the pedigree shown below which two
individuals in the pedigree must be carriers of haemophilia?

A. I-1 and II-1

B. I-4 and II-2
C. II-1 and II-2
D. III-2 and III-3

25. What is a difference between autosomes and sex chromosomes?

A. Autosomes are not found in gametes but sex chromosomes are.
B. Sex chromosomes are found in animal cells and autosomes are found in plant cells.
C. Autosomes are diploid and sex chromosomes are haploid.
D. Sex chromosomes determine gender and autosomes do not.

26. A polygenic character is controlled by two genes each with two alleles. How many different possible
genotypes are there for this character?
A. 2
B. 4
C. 9
D. 16

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27. The pedigree below shows which members of a family were Rhesus positive (■ and •) and Rhesus
negative (□ and O). The allele for Rhesus positive blood (Rh+) is dominant over the allele for Rhesus
negative blood (R-).
Rhesus positive male
I II III
Rhesus negative male

Rhesus positive female

Rhesus negative female

Which are possible genotypes of the individuals numbered I, II and III?

I II III
A. +
Rh Rh + +
Rh Rh +
Rh Rh–
+

B. Rh+ Rh+ Rh+ Rh– Rh+ Rh+

C. Rh+ Rh+ Rh+ Rh– Rh+ Rh–
D. Rh+ Rh– Rh+ Rh– Rh+ Rh+

28. A parent organism of unknown genotype is mated in a test cross. Half of the offspring have the same
phenotype as the parent. What can be concluded from this result?
A. The parent is heterozygous for the trait.
B. The trait being inherited is polygenic.
C. The parent is homozygous dominant for the trait.
D. The parent is homozygous recessive for the trait.

29. What constitutes a linkage group?

A. Genes carried on the same chromosome
B. Genes whose loci are on different autosomes
C. Genes controlling a polygenic characteristic
D. Alleles for the inheritance of ABO blood groups

30. What is a common sex-linked defect in humans?

A. Colour blindness which occurs more commonly in males
B. Haemophilia which occurs more commonly in females
C. Blood group Rhesus positive (Rh+)
D. Blood group Rhesus negative (Rh-)