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\centerline{MONT 104N -- Modeling the Environment}
\centerline{Information on Midterm Exam}
\centerline{October 15, 2018}
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\noindent
{\it General Information and Groundrules}
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As announced in class and on the revised course schedule
online, the midterm exam for our Montserrat seminar will
be given in class on Friday, October 26.  
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\item{$\bullet$} This will be a full period, individual exam.  No 
sharing of information with others 
in any form will be permitted during the exam.
\item{$\bullet$} You may use a calculator during the exam,
but {\it no other electronic devices}.
\item{$\bullet$} There will be three or four mathematical
problems (each possibly with a few separate parts).  These
questions will be similar to things you have seen on the
problem sets or the group projects from {\it Chapters 1 - 4}
of our text.  Some sample exam questions
are given later in this document.
\item{$\bullet$}  The exam will also include an essay question 
on a set topic given below.  As you will see, part of this consists of 
three factual questions.  You will need to look up some information
before coming to the exam to write this part of the essay.  
Then, the rest of the essay topic asks you to take a stand one way or 
another about whether this can be justified on ethical grounds.  
There's no one right or wrong answer for that part; the point 
there is to get you to think about the issues and try to 
formulate a position of your own.   This section 
of the exam will take you about 15 minutes or so, so it will be 
necessary to spend some of your preparation time on deciding 
what you want to say.
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\noindent
{\it Background for the Essay}
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Unless you have been following the emerging scientific discipline of 
{\it synthetic biology}, you might not be aware that humans today {\it are 
already able to create new forms of life almost ``from scratch''}, at least on the single-cell 
level.  By this, I mean that we can create life forms by building them up 
from simpler building blocks (in a way similar to what Victor Frankenstein did in
Mary Shelley's novel), not by selective breeding to guide evolution to produce new traits in an existing 
species, as we have been able to do for thousands of years.  For instance, in 2010, 
a research group headed by Craig Venter (who had earlier spearheaded the Human Genome Project)
 announced that they had been able create a 
new species of bacteria by removing the genetic material (DNA) from one bacterial cell 
and replacing it by alternative DNA {\it that they had synthesized in their lab from
simpler chemical components}.  The resulting
cells successfully reproduced, hence Venter argued they should be considered as a new, 
synthetic form of life.  In 2016, the same lab announced that they 
had created another synthetic microbe (that they called Syn 3.0) by a similar 
process, but using only 473 genes (about 500,000 base pairs of synthesized 
DNA).  One interesting feature of this work is that this seemed to be the 
{\it smallest number} of genes that would produce a viable life form of this type.  
Yet even the scientists who did this work admitted that they had no idea what 
about 30\% of the genes they had included in Syn 3.0 were actually doing(!).   
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\noindent
{\it Essay Prompt}
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Why is there great interest in creating synthetic bacteria and other single-cell
organisms?  For what jobs might they be useful?  On the other hand, what 
potential dangers have people suggested in this kind of work?  Considering 
{\it Frankenstein} as a warning, is this something we should be pursuing with our
technology?  Are the potential good effects enough to outweigh the possible dangers?   
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\noindent
{\it Sample Mathematical Questions}
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\noindent
{\it Disclaimer:}  The actual exam questions will cover the same mathematical topics and 
will be at approximately the same level of difficulty.  However the organization
and the content may be completely different.  
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\noindent
I.  The following table gives estimates of the amounts of carbon (in units of $10^{15}$ kilograms)
contained in the major ``reservoirs'' of this element on planet Earth:
$$\matrix{ {\bf Reservoir} & {\bf Carbon\ Content }\cr
           {\rm Atmosphere} & .59 \cr
           {\rm Crust\ (as\ fossil\ fuels)} & 3.7 \cr
           {\rm Vegetation} & 2.3 \cr
           {\rm Shallow\ Ocean} & .9  \cr
           {\rm Deep\ Ocean} & 37.3\cr}$$ 
\item{A.}  What percent of the total carbon present on 
Earth is contained in each of these reservoirs?
$$\matrix{ {\bf Reservoir} & {\bf Percent\ of\ Total\ Carbon}\cr
& \cr
           {\rm Atmosphere} & \underline{\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad}\cr
&\cr
           {\rm Crust\ (as\ fossil\ fuels)} & \underline{\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad}\cr
&\cr
           {\rm Vegetation} & \underline{\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad} \cr
&\cr
           {\rm Shallow\ Ocean} &  \underline{\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad}\cr
&\cr
           {\rm Deep\ Ocean} & \underline{\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad} \cr}$$  

\item{B.}  Construct and draw a chart (your choice of type) showing how
the total carbon breaks down into these categories.  
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\noindent
II.  Burning coal provides between 9500 and 14000 BTUs of heat energy per
pound.  Using the information below, answer questions A and B:
\item{$\bullet$}  $1\ {\rm lb} \doteq .454\ {\rm kg}$
\item{$\bullet$}  $1\ {\rm BTU} \doteq .252\ {\rm Kilocalorie}$
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\item{A.} Express the heat energy from burning one pound of coal as a range of values
in Kilocalories.  Give the endpoints of your range in scientific notation.
\item{B.}  What is the range of heat energy values provided by burning 1 kilogram of coal, 
expressed in BTUs?
\vglue 2.0truein
\item{C.} If the 9500 BTU figure comes from bituminous coal and the 14000 BTU comes
from anthracite coal, what is the percentage difference in heat energy between anthracite and bituminous?  
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\noindent
III. The Honda Civic comes in a standard (gasoline engine) version and a 
hybrid (gasoline-electric) version.  The standard version has a fuel efficiency of about 34 miles per 
gallon, while the hybrid version gets about 44 miles per gallon.  The hybrid version has a price about 
$\$ 4000$ more than the standard.  You drive about 10000 miles per year.
Assume that gasoline will average $\$ 3.00 $ per gallon over the life of your vehicle.    
\item{A.}  How many gallons of gasoline would you use to drive the 10000 miles with each version?
\item{B.}  What is the difference between your costs for gasoline with the two versions?
\item{C.}  If you bought the hybrid version, about 
how many years would it take for your savings in gasoline costs to make up for the difference in price?  
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\noindent
IV.  The link next to the one where you downloaded this review sheet shows a GoogleSheets scatter plot.
Place a check next to the best responses to the questions below.
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\item{A.}  (5) The least squares regression line for this data set would
have a slope $m$ about:

\leftline{ $m = -.1$ $\underline{\qquad\qquad\qquad}$}

\leftline{ $m = .3$ $\underline{\qquad\qquad\qquad}$}

\leftline{ $m = 1$ $\underline{\qquad\qquad\qquad}$}
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\noindent
B.  (5)  Based on the scatter plot, the $R^2$ statistic is
probably:

\leftline{ between $.8$ and $1$ $\underline{\qquad\qquad\qquad}$} 

\leftline{ between $.4$ and $.6$ $\underline{\qquad\qquad\qquad}$} 

\leftline{ between $.2$ and $.4$ $\underline{\qquad\qquad\qquad}$} 

\leftline{ between $.0$ and $.2$ $\underline{\qquad\qquad\qquad}$}
\bye
