4 ready-made review sets for this topic, 50 questions in all, marked SL or HL, to play as a class game on the projector. Free to host, and students join with a code.
The particular set of abiotic and biotic conditions and resources upon which an organism or population depends?
Topic 2 is the biggest topic in the course. It starts with individuals, populations, communities and ecosystems: species, habitats and niches, abiotic and biotic factors, carrying capacity, population growth curves, and sampling with quadrats and the Lincoln index. Then energy and biomass (photosynthesis and respiration, trophic levels, productivity, ecological pyramids, bioaccumulation and biomagnification), the carbon cycle, climate and biomes, and zonation and succession. At higher level it adds the nitrogen cycle and methane, El Niño and La Niña, and plagioclimax communities.
Play this set opens the set in splycr, where you can read every question and host it for your class straight away. Hosting needs no account, and students join with the code on the board. A free account lets you copy a set and edit it.
The questions come from the Biology by Bradford flashcard bank. Each one plays as multiple choice, and the wrong options are other answers from the same set.
ESS has had a higher level course since the guide first assessed in 2026. Sets marked SL suit every ESS student, because higher level students study the standard level content too. Sets marked HL cover the additional higher level material in topics 2 to 8; Topic 1 has none, so its sets are all SL. The three HL lenses (environmental law, economics and ethics) have no sets yet.
The particular set of abiotic and biotic conditions and resources upon which an organism or population depends?
Answer: Ecological niche
The maximum population size a habitat can support given its limited resources?
Answer: Carrying capacity
A species that has a disproportionately large effect on community structure relative to its abundance?
Answer: Keystone species
Law stating energy transformations are never 100% efficient; some is always lost as heat?
Answer: Second law of thermodynamics
Biomass remaining after respiratory losses; the amount available to the next trophic level?
Answer: Net productivity (NP)
Increasing concentration of a non-biodegradable pollutant along successive trophic levels?
Answer: Biomagnification
A storage that acts as a net accumulator of an element?
Answer: Sink
Model of Hadley, Ferrel and polar cells explaining the global distribution of precipitation, temperature and biomes?
Answer: Tricellular model
Succession on bare, previously uncolonized substrate (e.g. new lava flows)?
Answer: Primary succession
Industrial process converting N₂ and H₂ into ammonia for use as fertilizer?
Answer: Haber process
Bacterial conversion of nitrates to N₂ gas; only occurs in anaerobic conditions?
Answer: Denitrification
Irregular cycle of warming and cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean surface, with linked shifts in air pressure, recurring every 2–7 years?
Answer: ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation)
Every set plays in all eight modes. These two fit this topic best.
Topic 2 is full of terms that are easy to swap: gross or net productivity, bioaccumulation or biomagnification, primary or secondary succession. In team Racer only one teammate has the right option and a wrong answer sends the whole team back, so students argue it out first.
Every right answer in a row raises a student's multiplier, up to 3×, and one slip drops it back to 1×. In the biggest topic of the course, it shows quickly who knows the vocabulary cold.