Regents Living Environment Test Preparation Practice

    Homeostasis And Immunity

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    Base your answers to questions 3 on the diagram below and your knowledge of biology. The diagram represents an ameba, a single-celled organism, carrying out an essential life process.

    ecology, energy flow and food web fig: lenv12013-exam_g11.png

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    Base your answers to questions 5 on the diagrams below and on your knowledge of biology. The diagrams represent some of the systems that make up the human body.

    homeostasis and immunity, systems of human body fig: lenv12018-examw_g12.png

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    Base your answer to question 13-16 on the information below and on your knowledge of biology.

    Artificial Placenta

    It is estimated that every year more than 15 million babies are born too early. The lungs of these premature infants are often immature and easily damaged. Premature births happen for a variety of reasons—some known and some unknown. Those that are known include infections and conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure. Scientists are researching what causes premature births, in an attempt to develop solutions to prevent them.

    Scientists are also working on the development of an artificial placenta. At the University of Michigan, five premature lambs were placed in artificial placentas and kept alive for weeks. During this time, each lamb’s blood was circulated through its artificial placenta.

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    Base your answers to questions 17 on the information below and on your knowledge of biology.

    Mitochondrial Replacement Therapy

    Mutations in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) are associated with some severe human diseases and are inherited through the cytoplasm in the egg cell. These diseases vary, but often affect organs and tissues with the highest energy requirements, including the brain, heart, muscle, pancreas, and kidney.

    Scientists have successfully used mitochondrial replacement therapy with monkeys. Scientists are considering using this technique to reduce the incidence of mitochondrial disease in children. The proposed treatment would involve removing the nucleus from an egg donated by a healthy woman and replacing it with an egg nucleus from a patient (mother) with mitochondrial disease. This would place the patient’s egg nucleus into the cytoplasm of the donor’s egg containing healthy mitochondria. The egg is then fertilized with the father’s sperm externally using in vitro fertilization (IVF) to produce a zygote. The zygote is cultured for a few days to produce an embryo.

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    Base your answers to questions 18 on the passage below and on your knowledge of biology.

    Smoking is Dumb

    A study by Prof. Mark Weiner of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Psychiatry and the Sheba Medical Center of Tel Hashomer Hospital has determined that young men who smoke are likely to have lower IQs than their nonsmoking peers. Tracking 18- to 21-year- old men enlisted in the Israeli army in the largest study of its kind, he has been able to demonstrate an important connection between the number of cigarettes young males smoke and their IQ.

    The average IQ for a nonsmoker was about 101, while the smokers’ average was more than seven IQ points lower at about 94, the study determined. The IQs of young men who smoked more than a pack a day were lower still, at about 90. An IQ score in a healthy population of such young men, with no mental disorders, falls within the range of 84 to 116.

    Source: Science Daily April 2, 2010

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