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STAAR High School Biology - 2022 Past Paper
Quiz by Biology - Texas Education Agency
Track each student's skills and progress in your Mastery dashboards
​A dichotomous key of different mollusks is shown.
Which mollusk moves by jet propulsion and does not have an external shell?
Snail
Nautilus
Slug
Squid
A dichotomous key of different mollusks is shown.
Which mollusk moves by jet propulsion and does not have an external shell?
Which statement best describes how a virus replicates?
Biting flies can transmit diseases and cause loss of blood for animals in nature. Horses have developed behaviors to repel biting flies such as ear twitching, head tossing, leg stomping, and tail swishing.
Which statement best describes the interaction between body systems that allows horses to repel biting flies?Â
Oil spills in the ocean affect marine food webs. Animals that are initially affected by oil spills include sea otters, seabirds, and other organisms that spend most of their time on the ocean surface.
Based on the food web, how would a significant decrease in the sea otter population due to an oil spill most likely affect this ecosystem?
Which of these shows an example of an insertion mutation?
Positive thigmotropism is a response in plants in which they move and grow toward an object the plant comes into physical contact with, usually curling around the object.
This response of the shoot system benefits the plant by allowing the plant to —
White clovers, Trifolium repens, are plants that are native to Europe and Central Asia and are able to produce the poison cyanide within their cells. Skunk cabbage, Symplocarpus foetidus, is a plant that is native to eastern North America and can produce a chemical that makes it have a strong, foul odor and bitter taste.
The chemicals produced by both the white clovers and skunk cabbages are adaptations that allow them to —
A model of the genetic control of coat color in rabbits is shown.
Which Punnett square represents a cross that would produce albino offspring?
When a stem cell divides, it produces two daughter cells. One daughter cell will remain a stem cell, while the other daughter cell will differentiate into a specialized cell.
Which factor will most directly determine what type of specialized cell will be produced?
Green anoles are lizards that can change their skin color rapidly in response to various stimuli. This adaptation is the result of —
Which type of movement across a cell’s plasma membrane requires energy supplied by ATP?
Leaf-cutter ants harvest leaves and carry them to fungi that convert plant material into a usable form for the ants to digest. The fungi depend on the leaves for nutrients. The ants also produce an antibiotic on their bodies that helps protect the fungi from harmful bacteria.
Which of these explains the relationship between the leaf-cutter ants and the fungi?
A model of transcription and a codon chart are shown.
Which amino acid would be coded first from the DNA strand being transcribed?
Why is it important to assign each organism a scientific name?
A cellular process is shown.
Which of these is the most likely result of the process shown in the diagram?
Students studying the interaction among the reproductive parts of flowering plants make the graphic organizer shown.
Which terms best complete the numbered blanks in the flowchart?
What components make up the backbone of a DNA molecule?
A prokaryotic cell and a eukaryotic cell are shown.
Which characteristic best distinguishes these cells as either prokaryotic or eukaryotic?
Which sequence best describes an interaction between the integumentary and excretory systems that helps maintain homeostasis?
Which statement best describes a similarity among trees, cats, and amoebas?
Students designed an experiment to model the carbon cycle. The students combined water and carbon dioxide-producing disks in a sealed flask. The flask represented Earth’s atmosphere, and the lamp represented the sun. Their design is shown.
Which component can be added to the flask to reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide in the model atmosphere created by the disks?
Which characteristic do all organisms in Kingdoms Animalia, Protista, and Fungi have in common?
The graph shows the oxygen consumed by an athlete during different stages of training.
Based on the graph, which process is occurring between minute 5 and minute 10?
The table shows the classification of four mammals found in Texas.
Based on this table, which explanation best describes why elk and fallow deer are classified in the same genus?
A model of DNA is shown.
Which part of the DNA model is most directly associated with the coding of genetic information?
A model of an enzyme and its corresponding substrate is shown.
Which model best represents the molecules at the end of the reaction?
In domesticated dogs, hair type is controlled by two different alleles. The allele for wire hair is (H) and the allele for smooth hair is (h).
When two heterozygous dogs are crossed, what percentage of the offspring is expected to be homozygous for smooth hair?
Which statements best compare a function of proteins and lipids in a human cell?
A table comparing the characteristics of four samples is shown.
Which sample most likely contains viruses?
In a recent study, scientists investigated the effects of microorganisms naturally found in the body. They raised mice in two different environments and compared their immune system functions in response to a bacterial infection. Their data are shown.
Which conclusion about the microorganisms naturally found in the body is most likely supported by these data?
Which statements explain how a mutation in a somatic cell is different from a mutation that occurs in gametes?
Which model accurately shows a cell progressing through mitosis?
Some relationships between species found in the Texas Gulf Coast are shown in the food web.
Which energy pyramid best models energy flow in the Texas Gulf Coast community?
Normal cells have a contact inhibition feedback mechanism that prevents the cells from replicating when other cells are touched. A diagram of cells with contact inhibition and cells without contact inhibition is shown.
Which statement best describes what will happen to cells in an organism that lack contact inhibition?
In some coral reefs, a symbiotic relationship exists between pygmy seahorses and sea fans. The pygmy seahorse can wrap its tail around the branches of the sea fan. This allows the pygmy seahorse to be camouflaged within the sea fan, protecting it from predators. The pygmy seahorse does not harm or benefit the sea fan while it grasps the branches with its tail.
What is the correct classification of this symbiotic relationship?
Two scientists studied patterns of evolution in the fossil record. Many species they analyzed showed periods of slow changes interrupted by a period of rapid change.
This pattern of periods of slow change interrupted by periods of rapid change with few, if any transitional fossils, best describes the theory of —
Which table best compares the events that occur during different stages of the cell cycle?
A phylogenetic tree based on genetic similarities is shown.
Which numbered location on the phylogenetic tree identifies characteristics shared by Species B, C, and D?
Both the respiratory system and the digestive system involve the uptake of necessary molecules from an animal’s surroundings. Alveoli are tiny sacs that aid in the exchange of carbon dioxide and oxygen in the lungs. Intestinal villi are tiny projections along the lining of the intestines used to take in nutrients from food passing through.
Which system must interact with the respiratory and digestive systems to transport gases and nutrients throughout the body?
Cross-pollination of flowers from different populations of the same species will most likely result in —
After a wheat field is cleared, wild grasses and weeds begin growing. This process is considered —
A model of two structures that perform cellular processes is shown.
What are the products of the cellular processes in these organelles?
During an extended dry season in an area, the majority of the ground cover dried up. Which description best explains how this would affect the ecosystem in that area?
Water, sugar, and other important nutrients need to be transported from one part of a plant to another. Which statement correctly describes the interaction of the root and shoot systems during nutrient transport?
E. coli has three genes that each code for different enzymes that break down lactose. Scientists conducted investigations about the production of these enzymes using samples of E. coli. Their results are shown in the table.
Which conclusion about the production of the enzymes can be determined by analyzing the scientists’ results?
Most animals avoid eating monarch butterflies due to their bad taste. Viceroy butterflies look very similar to the monarchs.
Which of these best explains how the viceroy butterfly benefits from looking like the monarch butterfly?
Which sequence represents the levels of organization found in a multicellular organism, from smallest to largest?
