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Chemistry of Life Study Guide
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Essential Questions:
1. How do we know if something is alive?
2. How does life result from chemicals?
a. What are the chemical of life made from?
b. What is it about water that makes it an essential chemical for life?
3. How does the arrangement of the basic materials of life that influences their function?
a. What are the four main groups of macromolecules
b. What are enzymes and why do living things make them?
Learning Targets:
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Be able to list the five characteristics of living things
Explain how carbon is uniquely suited to form biological macromolecules
Describe how biological macromolecules form from monomers
Use models to compare and contrast the structural and functional characteristics of macromolecules
(carbohydrates, lipids, proteins and nucleic acids)
Describe the unique properties of water, and how these properties support life on earth (e.g. freezing point,
high specific heat, cohesion)
Describe the role of an enzyme as a catalyst in regulating a biochemical reaction
EQ1 – How do we know if something is alive?
1. What are the five characteristics of living things?
EQ2 – How does life result from chemicals?
2. What is the organization of life? (from atom to organism)
3. What three subatomic particles make up the atom?
4. Name the five elements that are most common in living things. Which of these elements is the most abundant
element in living things?
5. Complete the table below with information about chemical bonds.
Type of Bond
How the bond is forms
Covalent
Ionic
Hydrogen
6. What is a molecule? What type of chemical bond forms a molecule?
Examples
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7. Write the chemical formula for water and name the atoms that make up it up. What type of chemical bonds
hold the atoms in a water molecule together?
8. Water molecules are polar, which means one side has a slight positive charge and the other side has a slight
negative charge. Which side of the water molecule is positive? Which is negative?
9. Draw three water molecules showing their attraction to each other. What type of bond is this?
10. What is the difference between a solute and a solvent? What is the best (Universal) solvent?
11. List the properties of water that make essential molecule for life.
12. How is cohesion different from adhesion?
13. Why does ice float on water?
14. Why does the fact that ice floats essential to life on earth?
15. What is the pH range for acids? Do acids have a lot of H+ or OH- ? What is pH of the strongest acid?
16. What is the pH range for bases? Do acids have a lot of: H+ or OH- ? What is pH of the strongest base?
EQ3 -How does the arrangement of the basic materials of life that influences their function?
17. Complete the following table for the four macromolecules;
Macromolecule
Elements
found in
molecule
Monomer
Name
Polymer Name
Function
Example
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18. What types of Macromolecules are the following: monosaccharide, disaccharide, polysaccharide, dipeptide,
polypeptide, phospholipid, cholesterol?
19. Which organic compound (Macromolecule) is the main source of energy for living things?
20. Name the chemical bond that links together two amino acids in proteins:
21. How many Amino Acids are found in the human body?
22. Identify each of the following compounds as one four macromolecules;
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23. How are reactants and products different? Which is made by at the end of a chemical reaction?
24. What are reactions that build molecules called?
25. What are reaction that break down molecules called?
26. What is the energy called that is needed to get a chemical reaction started?
27. What is the substance called that makes the rate of any chemical reaction happen faster and with less energy by
lowering the activation energy needed?
28. What is the substance called that makes the rate of chemical reactions in living things happen faster and with
less energy?
29. List the four characteristics of enzymes.
30. Name 4 factors that will affect an enzymes ability to work properly. What is the reason why these have an
effect?
31. Describe why the enzyme-substrate relationship is called a lock and key model.
32. Label the following using the terms; enzyme, substrate, active site, enzyme-substrate complex, product