Advanced Placement Biology Summer Assignment
Due Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Welcome to AP Biology! I am excited to meet you and get started with class next year. AP
Biology is a challenging but fun class that requires a lot of hard work and effort from you. In
order to cover the required material by the AP exam date, you will need to begin the work over
the summer.
I have put together this assignment for you to complete and turn in to me on the first day of
school (Wednesday, August 12th). You will have a test over your summer assignment material
on Friday, August 14th, so you not only need to complete the assignment, you especially need
to study and learn the information! This summer assignment will really help us to get through
the material better next year by getting a head start over the summer. Part of the AP exam
entails writing essays, and we will be doing a lot of practice throughout the year, so this
assignment will let me see your writing style as well.
In order to complete the assignment, you will need to read parts of the AP Biology textbook and
complete online quizzes using the textbook website.
Registration instructions: go to the following URL: pearsonschool.com/access The text and
associated activities are provided fully online. In order to access the book and complete the summer
assignment you must create an individual account. After navigating to the website, scroll down to where
you can enter the following six letter code: SSNAST. Now, scroll down to the science section (about
25% of the way down) and click on student registration under Campbell, Biology 8e MasteringBiology
***You must pick the correct version for this to work, the 8th edition is the fourth Campbell title
listed*** Once you’ve clicked on the correct textbook, select “I Accept” at the bottom of the screen to
move past the terms and conditions. Now create your account: select no for the Pearson educational
account and create a new account. Your username and password is how you will access the online
book. Enter the following code:
SSNAST-QUIPU-COCCI-ADANA-TAPIR-MOOSE
Now enter your info., make sure to use your actual first and last name once prompted as this is how I will
get access to your online quiz scores. Enter 43035 for school zip code and select other under the school
option, type in OOHS in Lewis Center, OH. At this point you are ready to register for my class, click on
the Log in now tab and join a class using the following code  GUSE2015
On the main page that you first see, click on the Study Area tab (near the top middle of the
page). From the chapter guide located on the top pull down bar, you can access all of the
material by clicking on the red text that is associated with the different concepts (for the full page
by page details) and the activities/investigations that go along with each concept (in blue
clickable text). Please start by familiarizing yourself with how the website is constructed then
move on to complete the listed assignments. The more that you explore the website now the
better; we will be using this resource a lot this coming year. I will be around Columbus for most
of the summer, so if you would like to e-mail me with questions, please feel free to do so. If you
are stuck on any of the tasks, please don’t hesitate to ask for help.
Have a great summer—I hope that you get some good rest (and sun) and learn some
interesting biology during your summer assignment research! I look forward to getting to know
you all next year and seeing your hard work.
Mr. Gusé, Room 1104 at OOHS
[email protected]
Summer Assignment:
Task One: Recently, scientists have begun to view the wide array of species as fitting into 3
domains of life, rather than the 5 Kingdoms previously used.
 Old system - Monera, Protista, Fungi, Plantae and Animalia
 New system - Archaebacteria, Eubacteria and Eukarya
Find out why making this switch to the three domain system makes more sense in the face of
biochemical evidence, whose work from the 1970’s it is based on, and summarize the justification.
Write 2-4 paragraphs that summarize this information. In order to accomplish this, read concepts
1.2 (pg. 12-17), concept 26.6 (pg. 551-553), and concept 27.4: Lessons from Molecular Systematics
(pg. 565-566).
Task Two: Prepare a chart of the six “categories” of life:
Archaebacteria, Eubacteria, Protista, Fungi, Plantae and Animalia
This should be in a format that you can use as a reference tool for yourself and it must fit onto a
standard 8.5”-11” piece of paper. Addressing the following:
 Prokaryotic or eukaryotic cells
 Do they have membrane-bound organelles
 Single-celled and/or multicellular
 How they obtain their energy and nutrients (consumer, producer, decomposer, etc.)
 What the cell wall (if present) is made of
Task Three: Read chapter 2 entirely and complete the 37 question practice test online (labeled
practice quiz at the bottom of the ch. 2 page in the study area). This should serve as a review of
things learned previously with some new information to boost your understanding. The practice test
will give you an idea of the difficulty of the material for this course (you can retake the test as many
times as you like). Once you’re ready, there are three assignments to complete from the main page
of the textbook class page. Your grade for this task is based on how many correct answers you get
on your most recent attempts; make sure you’re logged in so I give you credit, see the front side of
this sheet for login instructions.
Task Four: Print out the first two AP essay questions from the 2005 exam (attached to this
document). On the actual test, you will have approximately 20 minutes for each essay question.
Please replicate this experience by first reading ch. 1 (pg. 1-9, 18-24) from the textbook (you should
have already completed the earlier tasks which include ch. 1.2) and then completing the essay
questions. Use the information that you have gained from your other tasks and prior classes to
answer the questions to the best of your ability. Give yourself an uninterrupted 40 minutes to
complete both essays, handwritten in blue or black ink. You will likely need the front and back of
one sheet of paper but if you need more space just add an additional sheet of unlined computer
paper.