Midterm Study Guide

Use this study guide to help you prep for the Midterm Exam

Use this, alongside the Canvas modules and past exams to study! The old exams in the Midterm tab were written by Dr. Oli, so expect to see inconsistencies between what is on those practice exams vs what I will give you. However, my exam is based on this study guide.

Reference Management:
-Understand how to import sources into your reference management tool and export the full source in the required format

Microscopy:
              -Identify and label parts of the microscope
              -understand how to Kohler a microscope
              -understand lens magnification (what is the true magnification of 4x?)
              -Know the reagents and process needed to complete a gram stain
              -identify gram positive/negative and organism morphology

Isolating Microbes:
-understand how to streak microbes on a plate using proper technique
-know how to correctly label a plate

Pipetting and Graphing:
              -understand basic pipetting techniques
              -understand how to calculate serial dilutions
              -properly manipulate data using Excel (produce graph using provided data, include proper labeling, averages, standard deviation error bars)

Growing Microbes:
-understand how to make media (calculate % agar, determine how much supplements should be added, etc)
-utilize DIFCO manual to find information on types of media (if the DIFCO manual is working....)

Enumeration of Microbes:
              -calculate CFU/ml
              -what is a countable range?
              -how to plate a Petrifilm, amount on plate, correct labeling, etc

Lab Math:
              -Review media preparation
              -C1V1 = C2V2
              -serial dilution calculations
              -dilution calculations

Traditional Diagnostics:
-Understand the diagnostic tests used in lab (positive vs negative tests, what kind of microbes grow on the media, differential vs selective, etc)
-utilize Gideon to identify organisms based on diagnostic tests

Molecular diagnostics:
              -understand how DNA is isolated
              -know the steps of PCR
              -identify parts of PCR and Gel (what’s the charge of DNA? What are key locations? What does long distance traveled vs short distance traveled indicate?)

Bioinformatics:
              -correctly identify FASTA format
              -know how to calculate Tm for PCR
              -be familiar with NCBI tools
              -know how to perform a BLAST
              -know how to construct and read a phylogenetic tree