**Higher level Biology 2012 Before/After**

jos360

Regarding that photosynthesis and yellow light question, what did people say?
I know from the graph and obviously that yellow is so similar to green in terms of its wavelength that very little is absorbed and I wasn't sure if they wanted you to say photosynthesis doesn't occur. But in the practical world, 0% absorption practically never occurs. So the real correct answer is that a small amount is absorbed and photosynthesis occurs. Just hope I don't get screwed over by the marking scheme being retarded, and not unjust or anything, just plain wrong. (which has happened before...)
I swear if this ruins 100% I'l be writing some angry letter...

Dicksboro_man

what did we all say for the last bit of question 1 (about two different types of fats) ? :-/

jos360

cocopopsxx wrote: »

Also, is there negative marking in section C?

Only within a part of a question.

Eg. Question: State two factors affecting photosynthesis
Answer 1: Light intensity and CO2
Answer 2: Light intensity
Answer 3: Light intensity and who won the world cup
Answer 4: trajectory of the moon and whether or not pluto is a planet

Answer 1 gets 6 marks (3+3)
Answer 2 gets 3 marks (3+0)
Answer 3 gets 0 marks as the 3 marks for the correct factor are canceled by the wrong answer for the other.

But you can't go below 0marks in a question.
so answer 4 just gets 0 marks, and not -6

Its just there to try stop guessing, not to punish people for being wrong

jos360

Dicksboro_man wrote: »

what did we all say for the last bit of question 1 (about two different types of fats) ? :-/

Saturated or non-saturated compounds
(has or hasn't got double or tripple bonds in it's molecule)
They might also take the fact that the ratio of carbon oxygen and hydrogen are in different ratios.

Kinda unfair to those not doing chemistry but it's on the bio syllabus too.


The keyword in the question was 'chemical' (eg. you cant say fats and oils.)

biohaiid

jos360 wrote: »

Saturated or non-saturated compounds
(has or hasn't got double or tripple bonds in it's molecule)
They might also take the fact that the ratio of carbon oxygen and hydrogen are in different ratios.

Kinda unfair to those not doing chemistry but it's on the bio syllabus too.


The keyword in the question was 'chemical' (eg. you cant say fats and oils.)

I said a triglyceride and a phospholipid, would that work too?

e-sull

Has this made an appearance yet??

Mani09

I still cant get over how bad that paper was. I'm an average student (68%) in mocks so I was pretty confident about getting a B in the test, until I looked at the paper. :-( the only questions that weren't too bad were the exp questions. The short questions were horrific and the long questions ...... Don't even get me started on the long questions.

Cill94

Mani09 wrote: »

I still cant get over how bad that paper was. I'm an average student (68%) in mocks so I was pretty confident about getting a B in the test, until I looked at the paper. :-( the only questions that weren't too bad were the exp questions. The short questions were horrific and the long questions ...... Don't even get me started on the long questions.

I was the exact same. I must have done each exam paper three times before that exam. And I found that today's paper was the hardest I've ever done. Maybe it's because I didn't study the big predictions, just cus historically biology is pretty unpredictable..but whaddya know...this year had to be the exception. Guess that's what I get for trying to play it safe :rolleyes:

Now I'll be lucky to get a C2!

Cill94

BridgetRB wrote: »

What was the thing about the colour of the light effecting photosynthesis all about? Neverrr saw that before just guessed ha Be grand sure....

Well leaves are green because they absorb all light except for green and yellow light, which they reflect.

Mani09

Cill94 wrote: »

Mani09 wrote: »

I still cant get over how bad that paper was. I'm an average student (68%) in mocks so I was pretty confident about getting a B in the test, until I looked at the paper. :-( the only questions that weren't too bad were the exp questions. The short questions were horrific and the long questions ...... Don't even get me started on the long questions.

I was the exact same. I must have done each exam paper three times before that exam. And I found that today's paper was the hardest I've ever done. Maybe it's because I didn't study the big predictions, just cus historically biology is pretty unpredictable..but whaddya know...this year had to be the exception. Guess that's what I get for trying to play it safe :rolleyes:

Now I'll be lucky to get a C2!

Same ...I did the 2008 and 2010 papers along with the basics eg. Photo, resp, DNA ect but it just didn't work out

Yeovil247

"How can a plant escape captivity?" They've gone mad this year! I just imagined a plant plucking its roots out and hoping the fence. I think I did fairly well anyway, maybe B1/A2 but that ecology question was quite strange.

QueenOfLeon

Yeovil247 wrote: »

"How can a plant escape captivity?" They've gone mad this year! I just imagined a plant plucking its roots out and hoping the fence. I think I did fairly well anyway, maybe B1/A2 but that ecology question was quite strange.

In 2009 there was a question about a fox's ability to open a wheelie bin...they love their wacky ecology!

partyatmygaff

QueenOfLeon wrote: »

In 2009 there was a question about a fox's ability to open a wheelie bin...they love their wacky ecology!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FARzAF9XBWo

:P

Glitt_123

lads its grand, thought im defo. not getting my A but calculated and realised that u can get an A1 with 40 marks lost, pretty handy

Nitsuj

Yeovil247 wrote: »

"How can a plant escape captivity?" They've gone mad this year! I just imagined a plant plucking its roots out and hoping the fence. I think I did fairly well anyway, maybe B1/A2 but that ecology question was quite strange.

What was a valid answer for that? I said it's seeds may be wind/animal dispersed or something.

jos360

Cill94 wrote: »

Well leaves are green because they absorb all light except for green and yellow light, which they reflect.

Well if you've found a leaf to reflect 100% of light, email CERN, they'l be pretty interested. 100% reflection of light practically never happens, even with a mirror.

ei.sderob

I'd say with the question on Grey Matter and White Matter, just saying Grey Matter consists of cell bodies and dendrites and that White Matter consists of axons wouldn't be enough in itself. White Matter is myelinated while Grey Matter isn't. You'd probably have to include reference to the brain being Grey on the outside and white on the inside, with the spinal cord being the opposite of that. Just read qs earlier in the thread about this and thought I'd express my opinion.

finality

jos360 wrote: »

Only within a part of a question.

Eg. Question: State two factors affecting photosynthesis
Answer 1: Light intensity and CO2
Answer 2: Light intensity
Answer 3: Light intensity and who won the world cup
Answer 4: trajectory of the moon and whether or not pluto is a planet

Answer 1 gets 6 marks (3+3)
Answer 2 gets 3 marks (3+0)
Answer 3 gets 0 marks as the 3 marks for the correct factor are canceled by the wrong answer for the other.

But you can't go below 0marks in a question.
so answer 4 just gets 0 marks, and not -6

Its just there to try stop guessing, not to punish people for being wrong

No, answer 3 would get 3 marks! If you put down

Light intensity, CO2, who won the world cup

Then you would only get 3 because it would cancel one of your correct answers.

whatsec

Okay one question I've been wondering about.. the graph on question 8 about the leaf yeast? had never seen that before. what did people do?

Fiona1993

Juxtaposition wrote: »

In the last part of the nervous system question, when asked to write about the cause no method of treatment of EITHER Parkinson's or paralysis, I answer it correctly re: Parkinson's, but failed to mention that I was talking about Parkinson's, will I still get the marks?

Oh holy ****.. I've done the EXACT same.... Noooooooooooo

Hayezer

whatsec wrote: »

Okay one question I've been wondering about.. the graph on question 8 about the leaf yeast? had never seen that before. what did people do?

I sorta drew it slightly going up and then a straight line :L total guess. For the enzyme one I had it low then up very high at around 25 degrees and then across a little bit then sharply down

FaoiSin

Fiona1993 wrote: »

Oh holy ****.. I've done the EXACT same.... Noooooooooooo

Me too

whatsec

finality wrote: »

jos360 wrote: »

Only within a part of a question.

Eg. Question: State two factors affecting photosynthesis
Answer 1: Light intensity and CO2
Answer 2: Light intensity
Answer 3: Light intensity and who won the world cup
Answer 4: trajectory of the moon and whether or not pluto is a planet

Answer 1 gets 6 marks (3+3)
Answer 2 gets 3 marks (3+0)
Answer 3 gets 0 marks as the 3 marks for the correct factor are canceled by the wrong answer for the other.

But you can't go below 0marks in a question.
so answer 4 just gets 0 marks, and not -6

Its just there to try stop guessing, not to punish people for being wrong

No, answer 3 would get 3 marks! If you put down

Light intensity, CO2, who won the world cup

Then you would only get 3 because it would cancel one of your correct answers.

My biology teacher is a correcter so we asked her all this stuff before the exam.

She said for section A if two answers are written down and one is wrong they cancel each other out. if three answers are written and only one is wrong, you get the marks.
the same applies for section B.

she said for the majority of section C you can write as much as you like and once you have the key words you get the marks. she used an example of how one time she was correcting a question about labour, and the student was like "his water breaks and he goes into the first stage of labour" and they got full marks because they had the words "labour" and "water breaks", even though they were talking about a man.

I think the negative marking thing you spoke about above applies only to questions that say give 2/3/4, which isn't too many questions. for the open ones you can write anything at all and they just pick out the right bits.

also, anything written with brackets around it isn't corrected.

paul4green

Mista wrote: »

Nope, sorry

Blood is a specialised connective tissue where it's extracellular matrix is the blood plasma so you might get away with it

finality

whatsec wrote: »

My biology teacher is a correcter so we asked her all this stuff before the exam.

She said for section A if two answers are written down and one is wrong they cancel each other out. if three answers are written and only one is wrong, you get the marks.
the same applies for section B.

she said for the majority of section C you can write as much as you like and once you have the key words you get the marks. she used an example of how one time she was correcting a question about labour, and the student was like "his water breaks and he goes into the first stage of labour" and they got full marks because they had the words "labour" and "water breaks", even though they were talking about a man.

I think the negative marking thing you spoke about above applies only to questions that say give 2/3/4, which isn't too many questions. for the open ones you can write anything at all and they just pick out the right bits.

also, anything written with brackets around it isn't corrected.

Yes I know but when a question asks for two answers, and you write one correct one and one incorrect one, you get the marks for the correct one. If you write one correct one and two incorrect ones, you get no marks.

From the marking scheme:
(it asked for 4 elements that make up protein)

carbon/ hydrogen/ oxygen/ calcium/aluminium

–there is a surplus answer, which is incorrect, and which cancels one of the three correct answers, therefore the candidate is awarded 2(3) marks

Like, here only one correct answer gets cancelled, despite two incorrect answers being given. That's because you get 4 attempts but a surplus answer can cancel a correct one.

If it asks for two answers, you can only cancel one of them by giving 3 or more. If you put 2 and only one is correct, the incorrect one doesn't cancel it.

But yes if they ask for one answer and you give two, an incorrect one will cancel a correct one.

123 LC

biohaiid wrote: »

I said a triglyceride and a phospholipid, would that work too?

i said that too! hopfully they say it's right

finality

ei.sderob wrote: »

I'd say with the question on Grey Matter and White Matter, just saying Grey Matter consists of cell bodies and dendrites and that White Matter consists of axons wouldn't be enough in itself. White Matter is myelinated while Grey Matter isn't. You'd probably have to include reference to the brain being Grey on the outside and white on the inside, with the spinal cord being the opposite of that. Just read qs earlier in the thread about this and thought I'd express my opinion.

I think one reason would be enough. I'd imagine it's 6 marks going for it, 3 for a detail about white matter and 3 for a contrasting detail about grey matter.

Hayezer

123 LC wrote: »

i said that too! hopfully they say it's right

Me too :P and hopefully if when correcting biology they just look for key words I should be grand! Messed up the last bit of Law of Segregation but I had all the right stuff before, little things like this annoy me so much :P

partyatmygaff

Dicksboro_man wrote: »

what did we all say for the last bit of question 1 (about two different types of fats) ? :-/

A few suitable answers:
Length of the fatty acids
Types of fatty acids
Saturated/Unsaturated fatty acids
Isomers (Although i'm not sure if that falls under "chemical composition")

I don't think the Phospholipid and Triglyceride answer will work. The reason for that lies in definition.

Lipids are a huge and varied group of compounds including triglycerides, diglycerides, monoglycerides, waxes, steroids, sterols, certain vitamins, phospholipids, prostaglandins and signalling molecules such as leukotrienes.

Fats on the other hand are a specific type of lipid. To be precise, they are triglycerides which are triesters of glycerol.

So in short... phospholipids and fats are both types of lipids. Phospholipids are not types of fats.

finality

partyatmygaff wrote: »

A few suitable answers:
Length of the fatty acids
Types of fatty acids
Saturated/Unsaturated fatty acids
Isomers (Although i'm not sure if that falls under "chemical composition")

I don't think the Phospholipid and Triglyceride answer will work. The reason for that lies in definition.

Lipids are a huge and varied group of compounds including triglycerides, diglycerides, monoglycerides, waxes, steroids, sterols, certain vitamins, phospholipids, prostaglandins and signalling molecules such as leukotrienes.

Fats on the other hand are a specific type of lipid. To be precise, they are triglycerides which are triesters of glycerol.

So in short... phospholipids and fats are both types of lipids. Phospholipids are not types of fats.

Do you think "they have differing ratios of carbon to hydrogen to oxygen" would be acceptable, partyatmygaff?