PACAT Practice Exam - Version 1 Flashcards
Imagine that you are walking through a park at night and all of a sudden you see something run across the path in front of you. Very quickly, you will notice your body preparing to either fight or run. In stressful situations, humans will often exhibit this fight-or-flight response. How does this response occur?
a. Release of the hormone epinephrine (adrenaline)
b. Release of the hormone insulin
c. Release of the neurotransmitter serotonin
d. Release of the neurotransmitter dopamine
a. Release of the hormone epinephrine (adrenaline)
Case:
Somatic mosaicism is when an individual contains two distinct cell populations as a result of a postzygotic mutation, with phenotypic consequence partially influenced by the extent of chromosomal rearrangement.
Question:
Chromosomal rearrangement is implicated in what somatic change?
a. Germinal mutation
b. Malignancy
c. Meiotic segregation
d. Recombination
b. Malignancy
Following an automobile accident, physical examination shows damage to a patient’s deltoid muscle and teres minor muscle. The patient is unable to abduct and laterally rotate their arm. What nerve is likely injured?
a. Axillary nerve
b. Musculocutaneous nerve
c. Radial nerve
d. Thoracodorsal nerve
a. Axillary nerve
Case:
A patient presents after 24 hours of fasting.
Question:
What source are they using as a substrate for gluconeogenesis?
a. Amino acids
b. Even-chain fatty acids
c. Glucose
d. Glycogen
a. Amino acids
A stats class consists of 20 girls and 24 boys. Of these, 15 boys and half of the mentioned girls study economics. If a person is chosen at random from the class, find the probability that the person selected is a girl who studies economics.
a. 5/22
b. 3/11
c. 15/44
d. 5/11
a. 5/22
75% of the breast lymphatics drain directly into what nodes?
a. Axillary nodes
b. Internal thoracic nodes
c. Pectoral nodes
d. Supraclavicular nodes
c. Pectoral nodes
Sodium (Na) loses its electron to become sodium ion (Na+). What kind of reaction is this?
a. Oxidation reaction
b. Reduction reaction
c. Redox reaction
d. Decomposition reaction
a. Oxidation reaction
Non-coding RNA refers to RNA that is transcribed from DNA but is not translated into a protein. Non-coding RNA can have many functions, many of which involve transcription and translation regulation. What type of RNA is considered a coding RNA?
a. miRNA (micro RNA)
b. mRNA (messenger RNA)
c. piRNA (piwi-interacting RNA)
d. siRNA (small interfering RNA)
b. mRNA (messenger RNA)
What kind of ions do nonmetals form?
a. Anions
b. Cations
c. Neutral
d. No ions
a. Anions
In what part of the body is there a thickened layer of epidermis?
a. Lower back
b. Pinna of ears
c. Scalp
d. Soles of the feet
d. Soles of the feet
You are presented with a female patient who shows a pervasive pattern of instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image, and emotions. This instability of self-image can result in feelings of emptiness and fears of abandonment. She is very impulsive, often showing feelings of anger, especially when criticized. She sometimes performs self-harm by cutting herself and threatens suicide. What disorder may she be exhibiting?
a. Borderline personality disorder
b. Narcissistic personality disorder
c. Paranoid personality disorder
d. Schizoid personality disorder
e. Antisocial personality disorder
a. Borderline personality disorder
Which of the following tasks in Freud’s psychosexual stages is possibly underachieved if the person is characterized by sarcasm, overeating, and nail-biting?
a. Oral
b. Anal
c. Phallic
d. Genital
a. Oral
Synonymous mutations are DNA mutations that do not change the amino acid inserted into the protein, but they can change the local structure of a protein and the global folding of the protein.
Which levels of protein structure can synonymous mutations alter?
a. Primary and secondary structure
b. Primary and tertiary structure
c. Primary, secondary, and tertiary structure
d. Secondary and tertiary structure
d. Secondary and tertiary structure
Case:
A 65-year-old woman slips and falls on the bathroom floor. She has a posterior dislocation of the hip joint and a fracture of the neck of the femur.
Question:
If the acetabulum is fractured at its posterosuperior margin by dislocation of the hip joint, what bone could be involved?
a. Pubis
b. Ilium
c. Ischium
d. Sacrum
b. Ilium
Case:
In cattle, the inherited lack of horns is called “polled” and is due to a single gene locus. A breeder has one line of cattle that are true-breeding for polled and one line of cattle that are true-breeding for non-polled.
Question:
How could the breeder determine if the polled allele is dominant or recessive?
a. Breed cattle from the two lines together; if all offspring display one trait, that trait is dominant.
b. Breed cattle from the two lines together; if 75% of offspring display one trait, that trait is dominant.
c. Determine how many breeds of cattle are polled and non-polled; whichever is more common is dominant.
d. Determine whether the trait is adaptive in the current environment; if it is beneficial, it is dominant.
a. Breed cattle from the two lines together; if all offspring display one trait, that trait is dominant.
In the urea cycle, what does the synthesis of carbamoyl phosphate depend upon?
a. Aspartate
b. Ornithine
c. Argininosuccinate
d. N-Acetylglutamic acid
d. N-Acetylglutamic acid
Free fatty acids are transported in the blood by binding to which of the following compounds?
a. Hemoglobin
b. Gamma globulins
c. Albumin
d. Platelets
c. Albumin
Case:
A patient presents with increased thirst and blurred vision. Analysis of their blood sugar demonstrates hyperglycemia.
Question:
What phenomenon may be observed through analysis of the patient’s erythrocytes?
a. Crenation
b. Hematopoiesis
c. Lysis
d. Swelling
a. Crenation
Which pairing of an intravenously administered fluid and its effect on both intravascular fluid volume (IV) and extracellular fluid volume (ECV) would be correct in a normal patient?
Tonicity is given relative to normal plasma. Assume a simple 2-compartment model (vascular space [blood/plasma] and extracellular fluid space).
a. Isotonic (normal) saline (NaCl)—increase in both IV and ECV
b. Hypertonic saline—decrease in IV, increase in ECV
c. Hypotonic saline—(slight) decrease in IV, decrease in ECV
d. Isotonic (normal) saline—increase in IV, no change in ECV
e. 5% glucose in free water—initial increase in vascular volume, decrease in ECV
d. Isotonic (normal) saline—increase in IV, no change in ECV
What specialized quality of dermatophytes enables them to infect skin, hair, and nails under normal conditions?
a. Antibiotic resistance
b. Evasion of dendritic cells
c. Induction of desquamation
d. Metabolism of keratin
d. Metabolism of keratin
Case:
After a hurricane left a pharmacists’s laboratory without power for several weeks, the local hospital’s urgent need to replenish medical supplies required the pharmacist to utilize historic techniques in order to identify several bottles of medicine that had lost their labels from the flooding. The pharmacist performed combustion analysis of the four samples but only trusted the carbon measurement that found the molecular formulas of all samples to contain four carbons. Realizing their fractional distillation equipment was perfectly intact, the pharmacist determined the boiling point of these compounds and purified them at the same time.
Question:
In what order were these compounds distilled off?
Acetic anhydride (ethanoic anhydride); 2-hydroxyethyl acetate (glycerol monoacetate); 1,4-butanediol; n-butanoic Acid (butyric acid)
a. 1,4-butanediol, Acetic anhydride (ethanoic anhydride), Butanoic Acid (butyric acid), 2-hydroxyethyl acetate (glycerol monoacetate)
b. 2-hydroxyethyl acetate (glycerol monoacetate), Acetic anhydride (ethanoic anhydride), 1,4-butanediol, Butanoic Acid (butyric acid)
c. Acetic anhydride (ethanoic anhydride), Butanoic Acid (butyric acid), 1,4-butanediol, 2-hydroxyethyl acetate (glycerol monoacetate)
d. Acetic anhydride (ethanoic anhydride), Butanoic Acid (butyric acid), 2-hydroxyethyl acetate (glycerol monoacetate), 1,4-butanediol
d. Acetic anhydride (ethanoic anhydride), Butanoic Acid (butyric acid), 2-hydroxyethyl acetate (glycerol monoacetate), 1,4-butanediol
Case:
A young woman was asked to be a part of a psychological study at her college. The study claimed to “measure one’s IQ by testing one’s physical strength.” After reading the description of the study, she decided to opt out of the study.
Question:
Which answer would explain why the woman would have opted out of the study?
a. The study lacked face validity.
b. The study had a strong bias.
c. The study was not reliable.
d. The study lacked construct validity.
a. The study lacked face validity.
Case:
A physician examines a patient with pain and paresthesia in the left leg. The distribution of the pain, running down the lateral aspect of the leg and the dorsal surface of the foot, suggests a herniated intervertebral disk. The physician links the distribution of symptoms with nerve L5.
Question:
Where has herniation occurred?
a. L3 to L4 intervertebral disk
b. L4 to L5 intervertebral disk
c. L5 to S1 intervertebral disk
d. L2 to L3 intervertebral disk
b. L4 to L5 intervertebral disk
A steroid hormone bypasses the surface receptor of a cell to instead attach to a target within the cell.
What organic molecule is performing this action?
a. Carbohydrate
b. Lipid
c. Nucleic acid
d. Protein
b. Lipid