Everything You Need to Know for the Living Environment Regents Spanish

Some states in the U.S. require students to accept and laissez passer a standardized exam in order to graduate from high school with a diploma. If you live in the land of New York, you'll have to accept and pass a standardized test called the Regents Exam in order to earn your loftier school diploma.

There are several individual Regents Exams, each covering a different subject. If you want to become a high schoolhouse diploma in the state of New York (called a Regents Diploma), y'all'll have to have and pass at least 1 scientific discipline Regents exam.

The Living Surroundings Regents Examination is one of four scientific discipline exams offered, and we're here to aid you lot learn everything you need to know to help yous determine if taking the Living Surroundings Regents examination is the best choice for yous.

In our full guide to this exam, we'll encompass the following:

• What the Living Environment Regents Exam is
• Who should take the Living Environment Regents Exam
• Important information about the examination for quick reference
• The format of the exam
• Sample questions from the test
• The topics and subtopics covered past the exam sections

At that place'south a lot to cover hither, so permit's get going!

(Alberto Grand. / Flickr)

What Is the New York State (NYS) Living Environment Regents Exam?

The Living Surroundings Regents examination is one of four science exams that loftier school students tin can take to fulfill the single science exam requirement for receiving either a local or a regents diploma. The Living Environment Regents test replaced the Biology Regents Exam and covers various topics and categories pertaining to biological science based on the New York State Core Curriculum.

To receive a Regents Diploma with Advanced Designation, students need to take and pass 2 scientific discipline Regents exams: 1 life science exam and one physical science exam. The Living Environment exam is the only life science Regents examination offered, so if you want to receive the Advanced Designation diploma, you'll have to take and laissez passer the Living Environment examination.

To sum it up: this is one test that you can take it to encounter your science exam requirement if you're graduating with a regular Regents Diploma—merely you take to accept the Living Environs Regents Exam if you're trying to get an Advanced Designation diploma.

Who Tin can Take the Living Environment Regents Exam?

So, who can have the Living Surroundings Regents Test?

Any ix-12 grade New York secondary school student can take the Living Surround Regents Exam. Put some other way, if you've completed the necessary biology coursework, you're allowed to take the test.

This means that students both who have taken a biological science course in school and students who have learned the material independently through alternative means are eligible to take the exam. Additionally, you cannot be barred from taking the test because you've had disciplinary issues or didn't brand As or Bs in your biology classes. As long as your course record indicates that you've taken the necessary classes, you lot should be immune to take the exam!

At that place's ane other prerequisite for taking the Living Environment Regents exam: you have to successfully complete 1200 minutes of laboratory feel and produce adequate written reports for each lab investigation. Students who meet this laboratory requirement are eligible to have the examination! For most students, this requirement can be met past taking two to three science courses that have lab components in high school.

At present that you know what the examination is and who might benefit from taking information technology, permit's dig into the most important facts y'all demand to know before taking the exam!

Living Environment Exam FAQs

To get started, nosotros're going to give you a quick guide to the almost essential facts almost the Living Environs Regents Exam. Recall of this like your crook sheet!

• Exam dates: The Living Environment Regents Exam is offered in January, June, and August annually (the Baronial 2021 date was cancelled due to the COVID-nineteen pandemic).

• Who tin take the exam: Students in grades eight through 12 are eligible to take the Living Environs Regents exam equally long as they have attained the minimum number of required laboratory hours and are approved past a school administrator.

• Examination question formats: The Living Environments test tests your knowledge using a combination of multiple choice and open response questions.

• Test sections: The exam consists of five sections, or parts, labeled Role A, Office B-i, Function B-2, Part C, and Part D. Each section has the post-obit number of questions:

• Function A consists of thirty multiple selection questions.

• Office B-one consists of 13 multiple pick questions.

• Part B-two consists of 12 multiple choice and open response questions.

• Role C consists of 17 open up response questions.

• Part D consists of 13 multiple choice and open response questions.

• Exam scoring: Test takers must attain an overall score of 65 in order to pass the exam.

• Examination length: Exam takers are allowed a maximum of three hours to consummate the Living Environment exam, with no specific time allotments for the individual sections of the examination.

Now that you know some quick facts about how the exam works, permit's expect a little more closely at the testing format for this exam.

Living Environment Regents Exam Testing Format

Knowing what to await from the format of a standardized test earlier you really sit for the exam can really give you a leg-upwardly. Here'due south an overview of the format of the Living Surround Regents Test.

How Many Questions Are There Per Section?

The Living Environs Regents Exam has 85 questions total, and these questions are divided up among the five exam sections (Office A, Office B-1, Part B-2, Part C, and Office D).

Each section has the following number of questions:

Test Part	Number of Questions
Part A	xxx multiple option questions
Function B-1	13 multiple pick questions
Role B-two	12 questions, mix of multiple selection and open up response
Part C	17 open up response questions
Part D	13 questions, mix of multiple pick and open response

How Much Time Is Allotted Per Exam Section?

Students taking the Living Environment Regents Examination are allotted three hours to complete the unabridged test—that's three hours from the fourth dimension that the test proctor begins the exam.

But, unlike many other standardized tests, each section of the Living Surround Regents Examination isn't timed individually. That could make it difficult to know how to pace yourself as you take the exam!

If you want to cease all 85 exam questions and have fourth dimension to check your work before time is up, you'll want to spend no more than than 2 minutes on each exam question. That will leave y'all with a ten minutes to review and/or tackle questions y'all skipped along the way.

How Is the Examination Scored?

To pass the Living Environment Regents Examination, y'all need to accomplish a score of 65. To pass with stardom, yous need a score of 85.

But those scores don't betoken that you've answered 65% of the test questions correctly, and they also aren't raw scores. Rather, that passing score of 65 is a scaled score: information technology indicates that you lot've successfully accomplished the set learning standards determined by the New York State Education Department. Generally speaking, you'll end upward receiving more points for answering harder questions correctly...hence the scaled scoring. (Besides: there's no penalty for guessing. So don't leave any answers bare!)

The big takeaway is this: your exam score isn't based on the number of questions yous answer correctly. You could take the examination in June, and your friend could have it in August, and you could answer a different number of questions correctly and both withal reach a passing score of 65 on the exam. It all depends on which questions you answer correctly, and there'due south no reliable way to figure that out while yous're taking the examination.

Topics Covered on the Living Environments Regents Exam

Since the Living Environs Regents Test took the place of the Biology Regents Exam, the 5 sections of the exam cover a range of major topics pertaining to biology. These topics are adamant by Standard 4 of the New York Common Core State Standards and include seven "Key Ideas" encompassing scientific concepts, principles, and theories.

If you want to learn more about the Living Environment Core Curriculum, which determines what topics announced on the Regents Test, visit New York's State Pedagogy Department website. But for now, we're going to give you lot a general overview of what topics each Primal Idea covers.

Key Idea one: Living Vs. Nonliving Things

Key Idea 1 states that, "Living things are both similar to and unlike from each other and from nonliving things."

Put another way, this Primal Idea asks you to show what you know virtually how living and nonliving things rely on certain processes to stay live and reproduce.

So, what specific concepts fall under this fundamental idea? Here'due south a short list of the concepts y'all need to sympathize and be able to explain pertaining to Key Idea 1 on the Living Surround Regents Exam:

• Diversity of populations within ecosystems and stability of ecosystems, which includes
• How populations are categorized based on the function they serve in the food web (eastward.chiliad. producers, consumers, decomposers)
• How nonliving environments and living populations interact to etch a total ecosystem
• How different species concord each other in check
• How disruptions in the numbers and types of species and/or environmental changes tin can upset ecosystem stability
• Structures and functions of the human body at different organizational levels (eastward.g. systems, tissues, cells, organelles), which includes
• The human digestive, respirative, reproductive, circulatory, and excretory systems, as well every bit human movement, coordination, and immunity; how these systems interact to perform the life functions.
• How disruptions in whatever human being arrangement can cause imbalance in homeostasis
• The different types of cells in the human trunk and their various functions
• The structure of the different types of cells in the human trunk
• The functions performed by specific structures within cells, including cytoplasm, mitochondria, ribosomes, cell membrane, vacuole, and nucleus.
• The function of receptor molecules in cellular communication
• How ane-celled organisms are able to role, specifically
• How the structures nowadays in some single-celled organisms cause them to act in a manner similar to the tissues and systems plant in multicellular organisms.

Key Idea 2: Genetics and DNA

Key Thought 2 states, "Organisms inherit genetic information in a diversity of ways that result in continuity of structure and function between parents and offspring."

This Key Idea is all about how genetics and reproduction work in organisms from all kingdoms. This requires a full agreement of DNA!

Here are the concepts you lot'll need to understand related to Key Thought two on the examination:

• How the structure and replication of genetic material result in offspring that resemble their parents, including
• How genes can be modified by interactions with the environment
• Heredity
• Where genetic information is located within cells
• How reproduction works in asexually reproducing organisms
• The office of sperms and eggs in sexual reproduction
• The structure and function of DNA in the reproductive process
• Gene mutations
• The types of molecules that acquit out the piece of work of the cell, particularly protein molecules
• How the technology of genetic engineering allows humans to change genetic makeup of organisms, which includes
• Selective breeding
• Use of dissimilar enzymes to cut, re-create, and move DNA segments and insert them into new organisms
• Altering genes through insertion, deletion, or substitution of DNA
• New fields of healthcare geared toward fighting diseases that are the event of genetic mutations

Key Idea 3: Development

Key Idea 3 states, "Individual organisms and species change over fourth dimension." In other words, Key Idea 3 is all about evolution.

This thought asks students to exist able to explain how evolution works, be able to distinguish between evolutionary change and the changes that occur in the lifetime of an individual organism, and describe the role of natural selection in biological evolution and the diversity of life on Earth today.

Here are the main concepts y'all'll need to know pertaining to Primal Thought 3:

• Explain the mechanisms and patterns of evolution, including
• The basic theory of biological evolution
• Genetic mutations, sorting, and recombination
• Natural selection
• Extinction of species

Key Idea four: Reproduction, Growth, and Aging

Key Idea 4 states, "The continuity of life is sustained through reproduction and evolution." This key thought involves knowledge about asexual reproduction and sexual reproduction, growth, evolution, aging, and reproductive engineering.

Concepts you need to know for this key idea include:

• How organisms, including humans reproduce their ain kind
• Asexual reproduction
• Sexual reproduction, including cognition of
• Meiosis and fertilization
• Gametes and zygotes
• Mitosis
• The function of cistron expression, hormones, and the environment in human reproduction and evolution
• The structures and functions of the female reproductive organization
• The structures and functions of the male person reproductive organization
• Human embryonic development and possible risks to the embryo due to genetic faults and/or exposure to environmental factors

Knowing the process of photosynthesis is ane of the elements of Key Idea v.

Key Idea 5: Homeostasis

Key Thought 5 states, "Organisms maintain a dynamic equilibrium that sustains life."

The primal concept to this key idea is homeostasis. Organisms take a diversity of homeostatic feedback mechanisms that maintain dynamic equilibrium. When these mechanisms fail, it can result in disease or even expiry. You'll need to empathise how homeostasis works in gild to successfully communicate your noesis of this Cardinal Idea.

Hither are some specific concepts you'll need to exist able to explain:

• Explicate the bones biochemical processes in living organisms and their importance in maintaining "dynamic equilibrium," or homeostasis. These processes include:
• Photosynthesis, the structure of found cells, and the structure of one-celled organisms
• Organic compounds and chemical energy
• Cellular respiration
• The storing of free energy in ATP molecules
• The biochemical processes of breakdown and synthesis and the role of enzymes in biochemical processes
• How the specific shapes of enzymes, hormones, receptor molecules, antibodies, and other molecules influence their interactions with each other
• Explain disease every bit a failure of homeostasis
• How viruses, bacteria, fungi, and other parasites interfere with the normal life functions of plants and animals
• The immune system and white blood cells
• Vaccinations
• Allergic reactions
• The function of biological research in responding to diseases in plants and animals
• Relate processes at the system level to the cellular level in order to explain dynamic equilibrium in multi-celled organisms
• Explain feedback mechanisms that maintain homeostasis

Key Idea 6: Ecology

Key Thought six states, "Plants and animals depend on each other and their concrete environment."

This key idea asks you to be able to articulate how ecological processes work, including competition between members of different species and inside species, and to be familiar with the concept of nutrient bondage and webs.

Specific concepts related to ecology that you need to know include

• Factors that limit growth of individuals and populations, including
• How energy flows through ecosystems;
• How the atoms and molecules on the Globe cycle amongst the living and nonliving components of the biosphere
• How the chemic elements that make up the molecules of living things pass through food webs
• How available energy, water, oxygen, and minerals limit the number of organisms a habitat can support
• The various types of relationships that organisms tin can have, e.g. producer/consumer, predator/prey, or parasite/host
• The importance of preserving diverseness of species and habitats
• How the living and nonliving environments modify over fourth dimension and answer to disturbances, including
• Ecological succession
• The role of climate change and natural disasters in altering stable ecosystems

Key Idea 7: Man Impact on the Environment

The seventh and final Key Thought that is included on the Living Surroundings Regents Exam states, "Man decisions and activities have had a profound impact on the physical and living environment."

This Primal Idea is asking you to recall about how human being activity affects and changes the living environment, causing or perpetuating phenomena like pollution, deforestation, extinction of species, global warming, and alteration of the ozone shield. This key thought is also politically oriented: it asks students to remember critically about how they can brand a difference environmentally literate citizens in the world.

You'll need to know the following concepts:

• The range of interrelationships of humans with the living and nonliving environment, which includes
• How increased human being consumption diminishes the earth'south finite resources
• How natural ecosystems provide basic processes that affect humans, and how man action changes these processes in negative means
• How human destruction of habitats threatens electric current global stability
• The bear on of technological development and growth in the human population on the living and nonliving environment, which includes
• How land use and pollution degrades ecosystems and results in a loss of multifariousness in environments
• Consequences of adding or removing specific organisms from ecosystems
• Effects of industrialization, particularly fossil fuels and nuclear fuels, on humans and ecosystems.

Question Formats (With Sample Questions!)

Like nosotros mentioned earlier, at that place are five sections on the Living Environment Regents Exam comprised of a mix of multiple choice and open response questions.

Now, we're going to look at each question type (with examples) to assistance familiarize you with the examination.

Multiple-Option Questions

All five sections of the Living Environment Regents exam include at to the lowest degree some multiple-choice questions. Your selected answer for each multiple choice question should be recorded on a split respond canvass that will exist provided with your exam.

Unlike many multiple-choice questions, this exam uses numbers for each answer option rather than letters. Each multiple-selection question has iv possible answers, designated by the numbers (1), (2), (3), and (4). For each multiple choice question, there is only one possible correct answer.

On each section of the exam, the multiple-option questions can vary in type, but there are two main types of multiple-option questions on the Living Environments exam:

• Statements that you will complete with the correct answer choice
• Questions that yous will answer with the correct answer selection

These question types may also include diagrams, passages of text, photographs, or data charts that you'll exist asked to employ to determine the correct reply as well.

Allow's look at some examples of multiple-option questions from the August 2019 Living Environment Regents Exam to help you get a clearer picture of what to look from this type of question on the examination!

We'll start with a sample test question that presents a statement that you lot must complete by selecting the right respond selection:

When handling cat litter, humans can potentially exist exposed to a harmful single-celled protozoan. Its main host is the mutual domestic cat, but it tin too live in humans. This protozoan is an example of a

1. predator
2. producer
3. parasite
4. scavenger

To answer this question, yous'll need to utilize your knowledge of biology to determine the correct reply that completes the judgement. Specifically, this question asks y'all to evidence your knowledge of Key Idea 6 from the Living Surroundings Cadre Curriculum, which is all about ecology. If you tried to reply this question and chose respond choice (3) parasite, you got information technology right!

Next, allow's take a look at a sample exam question that asks a question that you need to answer correctly:

Sure seaweeds contain a greater concentration of iodine inside their cells than there is in the seawater surrounding them. The free energy required to maintain this concentration difference is most closely associated with the action of

1. ribosomes
2. mitochondria
3. vacuoles
4. nuclei

Like the previous sample question, this 1 corresponds with a cardinal thought from the Core Curriculum: Primal Thought i. Fundamental Thought ane asks you to demonstrate what you know nigh the components of living systems, from single cells to ecosystems, and how they interact to maintain balance in the living environment.

So, what'due south the correct answer to this question? You got it right if you picked (2) mitochondria!

Open Response Questions

The other type of question on the Living Surround Regents Exam is open up response. In other words, instead of beingness given a ready of answers to cull from, yous volition write out your own correct answer using your existing knowledge of biology.

Three of the five sections of the exam will include a variety of open-ended response questions: Part B-2, Part C, and Role D (and Part C is all open response questions). The open response questions on the test may ask yous to provide correct answers in i or more of the following formats using space provided in the examination booklet itself (not on the separate respond canvass):

• Use information from a data table to construct a graph
• Provide a short answer in writing (often in response to a written passage)
• Fill-in-the-blank with correct answers
• Read a short passage (anywhere from ane to five short paragraphs) and answer several questions in unmarried written response addressing 2 or more specific points, usually in paragraph form

That ways that in order to practise well on these questions, it's important that you know the material and can clear your answer in writing.

At present, here are a few sample open response questions to familiarize you with what this blazon of question volition wait like on the test!

First, here's a sample question that asks you to provide a short reply in writing:

Explain why biomass is considered a renewable free energy source.

In the exam booklet, you'll exist given two to 3 lines to write out an explanation for why biomass is considered a renewable energy source. Similar the multiple choice questions, the open response questions on the examination stand for with Primal Ideas from the Core Curriculum. This question corresponds with Key Idea 7, which covers the interrelationships of humans with the living and nonliving surround.

Co-ordinate to the Living Environment Rating Guide for test scorers, the following would be considered adequate responses to the question higher up:

• Biomass is continually beingness produced by plants and animals.
• More than plants or trees can be grown to replace those used for fuel.
• Humans will always be generating nutrient wastes and garbage.
• Biomass is an energy source that is rapidly replaced by natural processes.

The Living Environment Regents Exam also includes backup-the-blank open-response questions, like this one:

Photosynthesis is a process that is of import to the survival of many organisms on Globe. Identify two raw materials necessary for photosynthesis.

________________________________ and _______________________________

For questions like this one, the exam will instruct you to record your answers directly in the blanks provided in the exam booklet.

And so, what do you lot need to know to answer this open up response question? Yous'll need to know the content that corresponds with Key Thought 5, which covers the biochemical processes of living organisms and homeostasis.

The exam Rating Guide states that the following answers would be considered acceptable responses to the question above:

• carbon dioxide/CO2
• water/Water

Nosotros've covered shorter questions and answers for the open-response questions on the exam, so permit's cease upward hither with a sample question that asks y'all to read a short passage and answer several questions in paragraph form:

Nearly humans savor candy, block, and ice cream. Every bit a result of evolutionary history, nosotros have a wide diversity of tastes. This is non truthful of all animals. Cats exercise not seek sweets. Over the grade of their evolutionary history, the cat family tree lost a cistron to discover sweet flavors. Most birds also lack this gene, with a few exceptions. Hummingbirds are sugar junkies.

Hummingbirds evolved from an insect-eating ancestor. The genes that detect the savory flavor of insects underwent changes, making hummingbirds more sensitive to sugars. These new sweet-sensing genes give hummingbirds a preference for high-calorie flower nectar. Hummingbirds actually refuse certain flowers whose nectar is not sugariness enough!

Discuss how sweet sensitivity in hummingbirds has developed. In your respond, be sure to:

• identify the initial outcome responsible for the new sugariness-sensing gene
• explicate how the presence of the sweet-sensing gene increased in the hummingbird population over time
• describe how the fossil record of hummingbird ancestors might be used to acquire more about the evolution of food preferences in hummingbirds

In the exam booklet, yous'll exist provided with approximately x lines to write out an explanation in paragraph form that addresses all three bullets. Your answer will depict upon your cognition of biological evolution, which corresponds with Central Idea 3.

The Rating Guide states that the post-obit would be considered adequate responses to this question:

Permit one credit for identifying the initial event responsible for the new sugariness-sensing cistron as a mutation/change in the genetic lawmaking.

Permit ane credit for explaining how the presence of the sweet-sensing cistron increased in the hummingbird population over time. Acceptable responses include, but are not limited to:

• Birds selecting for sweeter nectar survived and produced many offspring with the trait.
• Sweeter nectar provided more than energy, increasing the birds' run a risk to survive and
• reproduce.
• It was an adaptation that increased the birds' ability to survive and reproduce.

Let i credit for describing how the fossil record of hummingbird ancestors might be used to learn more near the evolution of food preferences in hummingbirds. Adequate responses include, only are not express to:

• Changes in the shape of hummingbird beaks could be followed. Beaks adapted for eating insects would probably be unlike from those adapted to drinking nectar.
• Fossils might let scientists to larn more than about the environment that hummingbirds lived in. This would provide data about the plants and insects nowadays.
• Different beak shapes could indicate dissimilar food preferences.

As you tin tell, the responses to these brusque passage questions are longer, more in depth, and require you to explain yourself clearly. The play a joke on to getting full credit on these responses—across merely beingness able to read critically and express yourself in writing—is answering all of the questions asked by the prompt.

In this instance, the prompt breaks down the things you accept to talk about in bullet points, namely identifying the event that caused the cistron, explaining how that factor impacted the hummingbird population, and discussing how fossils can assistance us learn more virtually hummingbirds today. If y'all bear on these three points correctly, y'all're well on your way to earning full credit.

(Owen Moore / Flickr)

3 Tips for Acing the Living Environment Regents Exam

Now that you're familiar with the Living Surroundings Regents Examination, here are our tiptop tips for making certain you pass with flying colors.

Tip 1: Pay Attention in Form

The majority of New York Country students who accept the Living Environment Regents Exam will have taken a Living Environments or biological science form before sitting for the exam. The absolute best manner to requite you a solid foundation for the knowledge y'all'll need to laissez passer this exam is to show up to class and pay attention while you're at that place.

Why? Your Living Surroundings teacher is required by your state education department to teach the concepts and skills that yous'll be tested on when yous take the Living Environment Regents Examination. Paying attending in class is an easy way to get expert guidance on what you need to know to pass the examination.

That's also a big reason to accept expert notes in class. When it comes time to start your Living Environment Regents review, you'll want to begin by rereading your form notes.

Tip two: Use Onetime Exams to Showtime Your Living Environment Regents Review

The New York State Education Section website conveniently provides access to PDF files of all past Living Environment Regents Exams. Using these is an amazing style to aid you study for the examination!

Having open, easy access to all of these past exams ways y'all have access to dozens of questions you tin use for practise. You could fifty-fifty administer a practice test to yourself using the most recently administered Living Environment Regents Exam. Notice a tranquillity place to piece of work, ready yourself an warning for three hours, and piece of work your mode through the most recent exam to help you get a experience for how apace you need to move through the test questions in social club to finish in fourth dimension.

Proceed in mind these are all real questions from real exams administered in past years. These tests are a fantastic style to gain practical insight into the exam before y'all have to have it yourself.

Tip three: Place Your Strengths and Weaknesses

As you have exercise exams and review course materials, take note of where you practice well and where you struggle, and apply that info to make decisions about what content to spend a little extra time reviewing before you take the exam.

This strategy can likewise apply to types of questions on the exam. Peradventure you're a whiz at answering multiple choice questions, just open response questions make you pretty anxious. Knowing where you succeed and struggle will help you maximize the time you spend on your NYS Living Environment Regents review. Spending more time practicing sample open response questions can help you experience more confident in your abilities when exam solar day arrives!

What's Next?

If y'all're aiming to graduate with an Advanced Designation diploma, it's a good idea for you to take some advanced courses to prepare. Check out our articles introducing you to AP classes and IB classes, then decide which course is right for you.

If y'all're already taking advanced scientific discipline classes, good for you! We accept resources to aid you lot tackle your biology exams and assist you get the scores you demand to earn higher credit. Hither'south our complete guide to the AP Biology exam (and our equivalent for the IB Biological science exam).

If you need extra assist studying for the Living Environment Regents Test, you lot may want to turn to professional person study guides. Not only are many affordable, they're also really good at explaining tough material you lot may not accept 100% understood in class. Check out this expert guide to some of the best biology study guides on the market.

Have friends who also demand assistance with exam prep? Share this article!

About the Author

Ashley Sufflé Robinson has a Ph.D. in 19th Century English Literature. As a content author for PrepScholar, Ashley is passionate about giving higher-leap students the in-depth information they need to go into the school of their dreams.

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