* Biology Higher level 2011 * (one thread please)

cglanton123

flyaway. wrote: »

I was dead set on doing the OL paper until about five minutes before the exam. My friends talked me into doing HL and I'm SO glad they did. The paper was fine. Certainly not the disaster I had been anticipating. I was actually pleased with the experiments. But yeah, would have been kicking myself if I'd dropped down to OL.

I was in the same way. :eek: I said i'd give it a go.... Levels wouldnt change what i did, i did not know... but Uber-Happy stayed in Honours... Ecology:D:D:D Nice paper overall....

soccymonster

For the scientific method question, what did people say in how they sterilised the compost? :P God, i have so much hatred for that question.

LifesaverNiall

i put loads of pressure on myself and was expecting to come out of that exam with an A.. im realy hoping for a B1 now.. im realy annoyed.. im just glad business went well so hopefully my points still even out.. *sigh

J_E

soccymonster wrote: »

For the scientific method question, what did people say in how they sterilised the compost? :P God, i have so much hatred for that question.

Autoclave/heated it. Was the only way I could think of really.

Eggy Baby!

The two scientists for the Cohesion-Tension model were Henry Dixon and John Joly...Irish the book seemed quite proud to state that lol...

I probably got an A2 or A1 in it, but I have to admit that the questions were pretty challenging, particularly some the way that they were worded. My jaw dropped when I discovered that, in the middle of a very easy excretion question, I had to draw a ****ing kidney? WTH??? Our teacher said they'd never asked that and I spent ages studying off the diagram of the Nephron...made a good attempt at it though I suppose :rolleyes:

Plus you had to draw a bloody pelvis under it...wtf...

Exothermic

Yeah, Ecology question was beautiful. It's always my best question on the paper, I got full marks in it for the mocks.

Ash_M

soccymonster wrote: »

For the scientific method question, what did people say in how they sterilised the compost? :P God, i have so much hatred for that question.

I did that one as extra so I just threw down Milton's Solution :P Don't think that was exactly what they were looking for somehow..

Exothermic

Cydoniac wrote: »

Autoclave/heated it. Was the only way I could think of really.

I said that too Thought using some some kind of disinfectant on soil sounded odd and could alter the pH.

xaoifsx

njd2010 wrote: »

I fell in love with that paper. It knew me so well... but the ducks bit was weird.

what i said for the ducks was that the females have more fat than males so they are warmer up north and the males cant handle the cold so they are more south...i thought that lot of questions was weird..

i didnt like the whole paper at all....my A is out the window..i totally screwed up that paper

J_E

Exothermic wrote: »

I said that too Thought using some some kind of disinfectant on soil sounded odd and could alter the pH.

Yeah, I was thinking either that or some sort of bacteria but then I thought either of those would defeat the point of it all.

DessieMG

LifesaverNiall wrote: »

i put loads of pressure on myself and was expecting to come out of that exam with an A.. im realy hoping for a B1 now.. im realy annoyed.. im just glad business went well so hopefully my points still even out.. *sigh

are you niall from mission beach USA? lol

Eggy Baby!

Exothermic wrote: »

I said that too Thought using some some kind of disinfectant on soil sounded odd and could alter the pH.

Was I the only one who said to flood it with alcohol? That sterilises it, doesn't it?

nommm

I thought the questions were worded terribly.

BrendaN_f

Eggy Baby! wrote: »

The two scientists for the Cohesion-Tension model were Henry Dixon and John Joly...Irish the book seemed quite proud to state that lol...

I probably got an A2 or A1 in it, but I have to admit that the questions were pretty challenging, particularly some the way that they were worded. My jaw dropped when I discovered that, in the middle of a very easy excretion question, I had to draw a ****ing kidney? WTH??? Our teacher said they'd never asked that and I spent ages studying off the diagram of the Nephron...made a good attempt at it though I suppose :rolleyes:

Plus you had to draw a bloody pelvis under it...wtf...

hahaha not THAT pelvis. the pelvis of the kidney is the place where it "connects" to all the vessels, if you know what i mean

soccymonster

Ash_M wrote: »

I did that one as extra so I just threw down Milton's Solution :P Don't think that was exactly what they were looking for somehow..

i said that too :P But autoclave sounds like a good one!

Catacomb

soccymonster wrote: »

For the scientific method question, what did people say in how they sterilised the compost? :P God, i have so much hatred for that question.

I wrote they put it into an industrial sized pressure cooker :P.

PJelly

Eggy Baby! wrote: »

The two scientists for the Cohesion-Tension model were Henry Dixon and John Joly...Irish the book seemed quite proud to state that lol...

I probably got an A2 or A1 in it, but I have to admit that the questions were pretty challenging, particularly some the way that they were worded. My jaw dropped when I discovered that, in the middle of a very easy excretion question, I had to draw a ****ing kidney? WTH??? Our teacher said they'd never asked that and I spent ages studying off the diagram of the Nephron...made a good attempt at it though I suppose :rolleyes:

Plus you had to draw a bloody pelvis under it...wtf...

It was quite unexpected, but I just drew it from memory. Well, TRIED to at least.

But... the kidney has a part called the pelvis. You didn't have to actually draw a pelvis behind the kidney.

The "Migrating Ducks" question was quite a "WTF?" moment, but apart from that, everything was fine. I answered every question and finished at quarter to 11!

I left out two parts to a question. But wrote at the top of the page "Mistakenly forgot 11 B (V) and C (i). Done on page 12, bottom"
Hope the examiner doesn't mind

Lovely paper, think I got my A1 again.

polka dot

Cydoniac wrote: »

Autoclave/heated it. Was the only way I could think of really.

I had no clue so I said burn it close enough

J_E

nommm wrote: »

I thought the questions were worded terribly.

I actually believe there was a mistake on one of them, it was the question with the pancreas and liver I think they misused a word.

LifesaverNiall

DessieMG wrote: »

are you niall from mission beach USA? lol

hahahah no no.. i wish! i was 2 months too old to put in an application! ;(

AG2R

Eggy Baby! wrote: »

Was I the only one who said to flood it with alcohol? That sterilises it, doesn't it?

I said that :L

Fiona1993

I really thought it was a horrible paper compared to other years! Where the hell was Human Reproduction?! The short questions were ok, the food one was weird though? Hoped for a B1.....unrealistic now I think :(:(:(:(:(

Dbstf

xaoifsx wrote: »

what i said for the ducks was that the females have more fat than males so they are warmer up north and the males cant handle the cold so they are more south...i thought that lot of questions was weird..

i didnt like the whole paper at all....my A is out the window..i totally screwed up that paper

thats exactly what i said for the ducks too.. it was the answer the made sense the most..

Dbstf

soccymonster wrote: »

For the scientific method question, what did people say in how they sterilised the compost? :P God, i have so much hatred for that question.

I said "we used antiseptic techniques to sterilise it" .. i dont think i gave an example tho :S

brian93

Thought it was a nice paper, but I was well prepared. Nearly everyone else in my year found it difficult.

The experiments were odd, but very do-able, the short questions were nice, and I did 5 long questions, and I'm pretty sure I managed at least 50 in all of them... hopefully a few high-50's!

The duck question, and the amino acid questions were weird, but for the most part it was fair. Thought asking about temperature in the photosynthesis question was odd too.

Anyone who worked continuously and knew lots of the course did well, those banking on stuff that didn't come up because they only started working in the last few weeks didn't.

Happy with it, got my A I think, hopefully an A1 :rolleyes:

Gav77

Was so freaked going in this morning to the point where i didnt even care anymore, it wasent that bad though! Although part b in the ecology question was a bit weird!!

Exothermic

Yeah, for the duck question what did people say?

I just threw down that the female ducks have a faster rate of metabolism? Able to produce the energy to stay warm. Something like that. :P

mockshelp

Everything I hated came up...plant responses, genetics, osmosis, enzymes...

Nothing I knew really well came up like photosynthesis or respiration (always 1 of these comes up but not in this stupid exam) sexual reproduction in humans and plants, protein synthesis, viruses, genetic engineering...I knew all those of by heart. I'm not wanting an A but I studied those well and none of them came up. So mad. If those came up I could write pages. With the stuff that came up I could only write 1 or 2 sentences.

Those ecology questions were so bad! I studied ecology really really hard because I knew it was a definite. I knew all the theory about the nitrogen cycle etc. and then they ask weird questions....I studied what was in my book...what more could I do. I know your supposed to apply your knowledge but even with my bio book I don't think I'd be able to answer those questions.

Also how much were you supposed to write? Did anyone else feel like the "long questions" were kind of all short questions. Usually in previous years the first few would be short quick answers and the last few parts (v) and (vi) would be long-type answer.
But all of mine were short. Like in the excretion question for example: "Would you expect glucose to be found in urine?" and explain- would 4 lines enough? I think I only wrote about 1 page on that question in total?! (excluding the diagram) Is that bad? I think what I wrote were correct answers though.

Just strange there was a full question on excretion. In past years they had like 3 different topics in part (a) (b) and (c) of a long question. Like DNA as part (a) photosynthesis part (b) etc. But not this year. I think that's why stuff I didn't come up. I studied the wrong stuff.

I didn't want an A but was sure I studied enough to get a B. But they put whole questions on 1 topic on all the wrong topics which messed me up! It would have been easy if I studied the other stuff. But the course is too big for me to swallow.

polka dot

I said they were separate because obviously it is not mating season and it's too cold for them to mate. :rolleyes: Weird ducks.

B_Fanatic

Yes! Just googled the amino acids question! This is what the examiner will see:

"23 21 22"

Feels bad man.

Yes, there are only 20 in the human body : ( Damn

Jaafa

The ducks wouldn't travel as far as they need to travel back home to give birth.

What was the answer for the amino acids one?

SoTek72

one of the easiest papers in years i thought, absolutely delighted

I found the temperature bit in the photosynthesis question a bit weird though ?

Exothermic

Are there not 20 common amino acids?

GoldRush4821

To be fair, the ecology questions over the years have often had interpreting questions so that was nothing new, other than the duck question which was just :O Genetics question should be 60/60 very nice one. Drawing the kidney couldn't believe that, ruined q12 for me. 14 was fine. 15 also except some parts of the ear I couldn't remember.. I thought about doing the pant transport but it just confused me so I did a nice Rhizopus.. I too was aiming for an A1 but not sure now. One thing is for sure, those short and experiment questions were a gift. What did people get for q4 tho, with the temperature? Like the range would it be right to have said 36.6 - 37.7 (can't remember exactly what I got now) but is that the right way to put it?

Couldn't believe menstrual cycle didn't come up or plant reproduction. History and biology both very different papers to previous years, which isn't necessarily bad but its sure to cause outrage. You've got to adapt people!

Framble

That was weird but not too bad in the end! When I looked over it first it looked awful cause some of the short questions and experiments were odd but they turned out pretty straightforward... Everyone said I was crazy to leave out Higher Level Respiration and Photosynthesis and Plant Reproduction..... but it paid off!

BrendaN_f

mockshelp wrote: »

But all of mine were short. Like in the excretion question for example: "Would you expect glucose to be found in urine?" and explain- would 4 lines enough? I

4 lines is more than enough for that, easily said in 1 line

mockshelp

How much did everyone write for each long question? Were all the "Give..." questions meant to be short or long answers?

doctorg

B_Fanatic wrote: »

Yes! Just googled the amino acids question! This is what the examiner will see:

"23 21 22"

Feels bad man.

Yes, there are only 20 in the human body : ( Damn

Where did you find that? I am pretty sure its 21. Its asked in protein not specifically for Humans.

G.J.

I found that to be a pretty fair paper! The deduction in 10 (b) was a bit of educated waffle, but I think I argued my points well enough! Didn't have a clue about the amino acids one, think I mixed up male and female ducks (...) and think I read qualitative instead of quantitative in (c). >.<

Overall happy though! Did all the shorts and experiments, and did 10, 12, 13 and 14 (b) & (c).

doctorg

It was the easiest paper for short questions ever. One or two bits in the long questions were phased weirdly but overall it was piss easy paper compared to other year!.

macskanadrag

Didn't like the paper, i found the questions to be wishy-washy, a bit of this, a bit of that. I know my anwers to most questions are not wrong but if they are the ones the examiners will be looking for? Not sure
And yep, none of the usual stuff came up, i find it frustrating but of course there are no compulsory questions in the LC so we knew that a lot we studied wouldn't come up.... *Sigh* I was prepared and had been hoping for an A, no idea what will come out of it.

Eh, time to study for chemistry.

Sineadlc

I don't think I did as well as I wanted! How well would I have 2 do just 2 get a C3 n all of the sections. I thought the paper this year was very messy and not really put together properly...

Platinum2010

Cydoniac wrote: »

Well, okay, if they were the ONLY ones you focused on, you should have known better and at least have had a general knowledge of everything. But whatever, the exam is through with, no point worrying yourself stupid, you might surprise yourself.

I had a general knowledge just knew the carbon cycle and all that in detail

bradleyboy

was it normal to find glucose in the urine? i put yes but i wasnt 100% sure?

Indestructable

Am I the only one that said the male ducks didn't want to have to put up with the female ones for the whole of Winter so they went further away...alone??

Platinum2010

bradleyboy wrote: »

was it normal to find glucose in the urine? i put yes but i wasnt 100% sure?

I think that's a positive test for diabetes or something ...not entirely sure

Platinum2010

Sineadlc wrote: »

I don't think I did as well as I wanted! How well would I have 2 do just 2 get a C3 n all of the sections. I thought the paper this year was very messy and not really put together properly...

A load of B****x looks like it was thrown together in a half hour tbh

Dbstf

bradleyboy wrote: »

was it normal to find glucose in the urine? i put yes but i wasnt 100% sure?

No, because it means that the person has diabetes. That's kind of what I said anyway.

tcurry93

Anybody remember what they got for the genetic cross??

Usually can do them so well but confused me today :rolleyes:

macskanadrag

bradleyboy wrote: »

was it normal to find glucose in the urine? i put yes but i wasnt 100% sure?

I'd say it's no - all your glucose should have been reabsorbed. If glucose is found in urine, you have a fair chance of being diabetic.