端木·宇 2008-6-19 22:29
How Your Knowledge of Biology Will Be Tested
The SAT II Biology tests your knowledge of biology in threedifferent ways. Knowing how your knowledge may be tested should helpyou better prepare yourself for the exam.
Recall Questions.
These questions test your basic knowledge ofthe fundamental facts and terminology of biology. A typical recallquestion might ask you to pick out the function of ribosomes or to namethe nitrogenous base that DNA and RNA do not have in common. Thesequestions are straightforward—they're simply a matter of knowing yourstuff. Some recall questions might be organized in sets around afigure, as in the example of the questions about the structure of theheart we described earlier.
Interpretation and Application Questions.
These questions test your ability to digestdata or biological scenarios and to extrapolate answers from thatunderstanding. These questions often necessitate that you are able touse, in tandem, your knowledge of different topics in biology. Aninterpretation and application question might present a scenario inwhich the temperature drops and then ask you to predict how this changewill affect the metabolism of a lizard and a dog. To answer thisquestion you have to realize, first, that a question about the changein metabolism due to temperature is asking about warm-blooded andcold-blooded animals. To get the question right, you must first recallthat a dog is warm-blooded and a lizard cold-blooded. Then you have tounderstand how a lowered temperature will affect each type of animal(as temperatures decrease, the metabolism of a cold-blooded animal willslow down, while the metabolism of the warm-blooded animal will remainconstant).
Laboratory Questions.
Laboratory questions describe a situation ina laboratory and often provide you with data. To answer thesequestions, you must be able to read and understand the data, to formhypotheses and conclusions based on the data, and to be able toidentify the goals and assumptions underlying the experiment.
