How can i improve my grade in Ag Science!

bobjimmy

Hi got a C2 in my mock but have a sneaky suspicion that it was marked too easy. Im hoping for a high B or an A in the real thing but am kinda lost at the moment. Any help on how to improve this would be great.

p.s Im staying away from the soil Q.

rainbowtrout

well it's a bit vague, but one way would be to have a look at the marking schemes and compare them to the answers you are giving.

Forget about the mock, standard of papers and correction is variable anyway. Practice past papers and check your answers with marking schemes and see where you are falling down.

Kerry man

Only one way about it...Read the farmers journal! its the only study I ever do:D

rainbowtrout

Kerry man wrote: »

Only one way about it...Read the farmers journal! its the only study I ever do:D

you need a bit more than the farmer's journal to answer the questions on the exam paper.

lctake2

Why are you not doing the soil q? Comes up every year and always has an experiment. I'd say it's a way to get your marks up! Just keep going over past papers and solutions, the same stuff comes up a lot. Write your answers in bullet points and write as many points as you can. Not sure how true this is but we were told that you don't lose marks for writing anything that's wrong as long as you're not contradicting yourself so if in doubt, put it down anyway.

bobjimmy

ah tanks thats really helpfull. Im choosing not to do soil because the topic is just too broad. I could know everthing on soil and a completely unseen question could pop up. Ill be doing the short Qs, Genetics and the experiments for sure. And i feel if i know Animal Production, grassland and crop production really well ill be covered for the exam.

rainbowtrout

bobjimmy wrote: »

ah tanks thats really helpfull. Im choosing not to do soil because the topic is just too broad. I could know everthing on soil and a completely unseen question could pop up. Ill be doing the short Qs, Genetics and the experiments for sure. And i feel if i know Animal Production, grassland and crop production really well ill be covered for the exam.

Soil is a large part of the course but I would never describe it as too broad. It covers soil formation, soil profiles, physical, chemical & biological properties, soil nutrients. While not predictable because of the large amount of material it's very factual

AWalkInTheFall

Doing past papers is absolutely KEY to getting a good grade in Ag Sci! I took it up last year fresh when I repeated my leaving cert and in the mocks I got a C2 or C3 (I did feel I had deserved better), and walked out with an A1 in the end with little extra effort than previous!
Past papers and marking papers are amazing help, and doing the priject really helps with knowledge on the crops and animal sections too. Also, if you take biology or chemistry, they really help to improve the number of quesitons you can answer. In the exam last year, I could only complete one of the questions due to Chemstry alone and had never heard it mentioned in Ag Science class before (about water and cleaning it and the matter in it or something).
As well, a lot of the questions I found I just had to wing it and do as many as possible because sometimes it's just using a bit of common sense or changing things around slightly (like for the experiment questions which seem to have 1,000+ different ways to asnwer them).