Jiazheng Chen
Many students in high school biology understand the ideas. They can explain how alleles separate in meiosis, why water moves into a cell, and how energy flows through a food web. Then a problem asks them to calculate a probability, run a chi-square test, or decide from a data table whether a claim is supported, and they freeze. Knowing the biology and being able to work the numbers are two different skills.This book teaches the second one. It focuses only on the part of biology that asks you to compute and to reason from data: 40 classic problems in 13 chapters, covering means and error bars, the chi-square test, probability and single-gene crosses, dihybrid crosses, sex linkage and linkage, pedigree analysis, Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, water potential, surface area and diffusion, free energy and enzyme rates, population growth, ecological data, gel electrophoresis and sequences, and experimental design. It is not a full-course review; it is the companion for the problems most students find hardest.Every classic problem is worked through in the same eight parts: The Problem, What kind of problem is this?, The General Approach, Step by Step, Now change one thing..., More than one way, Watch out, and The Takeaway. The heart of the book is 'Now change one thing...': the same fruit-fly cross gains a second gene, moves onto the X chromosome, or becomes linked; the same population is tested for equilibrium and then pushed by selection, migration, or drift. Each change is small, and you see that a whole family of problems is really one problem viewed from different sides.Inside you will find:Complete solutions with every equation, substitution, and unit written outClear explanations of where the common formulas come from, using algebra and basic data analysis only (no calculus)Common mistakes and how to avoid them, after every problemOriginal black-and-white figures: Punnett squares, branch diagrams, pedigrees, graphs with error bars, gels, and lab setupsThe content matches the quantitative skills tested in AP® Biology, and the book is written so that a student can work through it without a teacher. All problems, data, and illustrations are original.This book is also available in a Chinese edition, 美高生物解题手册 (A Bridge to Solving Classic Problems: High School Biology), with Chinese-English bilingual vocabulary support.AP® and Advanced Placement® are registered trademarks of the College Board, which was not involved in the production of, and does not endorse, this product.
