WaterAQA A-Level Biology: Flashcards
What these 15 flashcards ask
- Why is a water molecule described as polar?
- What bond forms between neighbouring water molecules?
- What is a metabolite?
- What happens to water in a condensation reaction?
- What happens to water in a hydrolysis reaction?
- Write the hydrolysis of ATP in words.
- Why is water a good solvent?
- Why is water being a solvent important for metabolism?
- What does the high specific heat capacity of water do?
- Why do enzymes benefit from water's high heat capacity?
- Define latent heat of vaporisation.
- What is the benefit of water's large latent heat of vaporisation?
- What is cohesion?
- How does cohesion help plants?
- What produces surface tension in water?
Exam questions on Water
- The small intestine digests a meal containing starch, protein and lipid, and the products are absorbed into cells where they are built into new polymers. All of these reactions take place in aqueous solution.Maltose is hydrolysed by the enzyme maltase in the small intestine. Describe what happens to the maltose molecule in this reaction.2 marks
- A pond in summer contains fish, algae and pond skaters (insects that walk across the surface of the water without sinking). During one day the air temperature above the pond rises by 15 °C but the temperature of the water rises by only 3 °C.Explain why the temperature of the pond water changes less than the temperature of the air, and why this is an advantage to the organisms living in the pond.2 marks
- A tall oak tree transports water from its roots to its leaves in xylem vessels. In full sunlight each leaf absorbs 1.20 kJ of energy per minute from the Sun, which would otherwise heat it. The energy needed to evaporate 1 g of water from a leaf is 2.4 kJ.Explain how the strong cohesion between water molecules helps the tree to transport water up to its leaves.3 marks
Written by the Exaim team, led by Shaun Daswani (Head of Upper Secondary, Improve ME Institute; MSc Financial Mathematics, Imperial College London; BSc, UCL) and Jason Daswani (operational lead, Improve ME Institute; LSE).