** 2013 Biology HL Before/After **

Peaceoutdude

Hey, I'm Kinda worried about biology as I was talking to a few people and I was just wondering if its true that if they ask you for one reason and you give 2 or 3 you can loose all marks.......

yoppo

Peaceoutdude wrote: »

Hey, I'm Kinda worried about biology as I was talking to a few people and I was just wondering if its true that if they ask you for one reason and you give 2 or 3 you can loose all marks.......

No you will lose marks if your other two answers are wrong. It cancels the right one out.

Peaceoutdude

ok thats fine, I thought they would be very particular and not give you marks as you have more answers down then what is necessary. Thanks

Inspector Coptoor

yoppo wrote: »

Could you have said excretion instead of heat?

It may end up in the marking scheme.
I wouldnt allow it personally.

Peaceoutdude wrote: »

Hey, I'm Kinda worried about biology as I was talking to a few people and I was just wondering if its true that if they ask you for one reason and you give 2 or 3 you can loose all marks.......

This gets quite technical and there are different rules for Section A compared to Section B and C.

Example.
Section A.
if you're asked for one answer and you give two:
If both are right, you get the marks
if one is right and one is wrong, you get the marks but with negative marking so you get zero
and obviously if both are wrong, you get zero.

Strangely, say a question like:
Name a mineral needed in the human diet.
if you said
Calcium, Vitamin A, Iron
you have two right answers and a wrong one, so one wrong cancels out the right and youve one right answer.

In Section B and C, to avoid a situation where the examiners end up choosing answers for candidates if they write down a load of answers, normally the first answer is accepted and thats it.

eg.
What is the diploid number of chromosomes in a human cell
Candidate writes 46, 23
the 46 comes first so its marked correct

If candidate wrote 23,46
the 23 is first so its is marked wrong and the examiner moves on.

It can be a pain to correct papers when people panic and write down everything that comes into their heads.

The answers are meant to be specific.
if you are asked to provide one answer, provide one.

HugsiePie

For the reproduction diagram I was kind of confused, there was a pointer at the uterine muscle, but they were asking basic stuff like ovaries and endometrium, so I was wondering did they actually mean the womb by the pointer so I wrote womb and put uterine muscle in brackets beside it. Did I lose marks?

Inspector Coptoor

as fair as I remember, in no order, the labels were:

Ovary
Fallopian Tube
Uterus (uterine wall)
Endometrium
Cervix

HugsiePie

Inspector Coptoor wrote: »

as fair as I remember, in no order, the labels were:

Ovary
Fallopian Tube
Uterus (uterine wall)
Endometrium
Cervix

But the pointer was actually at the wall, so by putting than in brackets and keeping "uterus" out of the brackets are marks lost?

Inspector Coptoor

HugsiePie wrote: »

But the pointer was actually at the wall, so by putting than in brackets and keeping "uterus" out of the brackets are marks lost?

Will depend on the marking scheme.
I'd be inclined to accept it.
Your 1st answer isnt wrong and your second answer is right.
I'd be happy with it.

HugsiePie

Leaving Cert Student wrote: »

My school has -4 people doing hebrew studies. theyre all ordibary level too. beat that B-)

Do you go to that Jewish school in Dublin?

11Charlie11

Inspector Coptoor wrote: »

The correct answer is heat as every organism uses the chemical energy they obtain (food) to carry out respiration.
Respiration is only about 40% efficient, the rest is lost as heat and is stored in the bonds of H2O and CO2.

I've been teaching Biology for over 7 years now and that was definitely a strange paper.

The very fact that Ecology didn't come up as Q.10 was extremely strange.
Ecology is a banker topic and it proved that way again yesterday with a short question (20 marks) and experiment question (30 marks) and a part of a long question (30 marks).
There's really no excuse for not knowing your Ecology.
It made up 80/400 marks or 20% of the paper if you wanted it to.

Many students can complain that there wasn't much human biology BUT, there was an entire question on human reproduction and another one on hormones.

I liked the photosynthesis question, but the topics of respiration and photosynthesis are STILL being asked at a very basic level, even on the higher level paper so students are still getting away lightly IMO

The OL paper was ridiculously hard, a lot of students who dropped down on the day were in for a shock.

So would you get any marks for writing down respiration?

HugsiePie

YES YES YES! OXYTOCIN IS RELEASED DURING LABOUR!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHOOP WHOOP

That being said, that wont counteract the gazillion other mistakes I made

Slow Show

Inspector Coptoor wrote: »

In Section B and C, to avoid a situation where the examiners end up choosing answers for candidates if they write down a load of answers, normally the first answer is accepted and thats it.

eg.
What is the diploid number of chromosomes in a human cell
Candidate writes 46, 23
the 46 comes first so its marked correct

If candidate wrote 23,46
the 23 is first so its is marked wrong and the examiner moves on.

It can be a pain to correct papers when people panic and write down everything that comes into their heads.

The answers are meant to be specific.
if you are asked to provide one answer, provide one.

Let's say for the question about the two biological similarities between the Nitrogen Cycle and Carbon cycle, now I had about four down but some of those probably weren't acceptable as answers, some were. How does it work out there?

HugsiePie

What term is used for the substance(s) that result(s) from the action of an enzyme on its substrate?

yoppo

HugsiePie wrote: »

What term is used for the substance(s) that result(s) from the action of an enzyme on its substrate?

I said products...! I don't know if it's that simple though.

HugsiePie

yoppo wrote: »

I said products...! I don't know if it's that simple though.

thats what i said too, m working out my score approx

11Charlie11

I said product

11Charlie11

Anyone know where to find a general list of answers?

Noccy_Mondy

Overall an unfair paper imo. Covered very little human Biology, very biased towards the cell and ecology

yoppo

11Charlie11 wrote: »

I said product

I was going to write product(s) like they did but that might annoy them so I didnt!

yoppo

11Charlie11 wrote: »

Anyone know where to find a general list of answers?

Just use your textbook. That should cover most scenarios.

11Charlie11

yoppo wrote: »

I was going to write product(s) like they did but that might annoy them so I didnt!

It's actually an amazing feeling when you see an dnswer you put down to be right mine are usually wrong

yoppo

11Charlie11 wrote: »

It's actually an amazing feeling when you see an dnswer you put down to be right mine are usually wrong

I went with my gut for most answers. I have a degree in chemistry and a minor in physiology so my mind didn't know which way to answer it! But hopefully I'll get an A1 or A2. The long were simple but I missed up slightly in the experiments and shorts.... and I always hated ecology!

11Charlie11

yoppo wrote: »

I went with my gut for most answers. I have a degree in chemistry and a minor in physiology so my mind didn't know which way to answer it! But hopefully I'll get an A1 or A2. The long were simple but I missed up slightly in the experiments and shorts.... and I always hated ecology!

Ya the f***er made up to 20% seriously? I know it's usually a relatively easy q and all but I find it extremely boring

yoppo

I always thought it was crap. There should be more human biology in biology... less plants!

Do you know the question: "Suggest an advantage to the cell of having a selectively permeable membrane"

What did you write? I couldn't think of anything!!

All I said was in the nuclear membrane RNA can enter and leave but DNA cant. I know it's right but I'm not sure if they wanted a benefit of a cell membrane.

0mega

yoppo wrote: »

I always thought it was crap. There should be more human biology in biology... less plants!

Do you know the question: "Suggest an advantage to the cell of having a selectively permeable membrane"

What did you write? I couldn't think of anything!!

All I said was in the nuclear membrane RNA can enter and leave but DNA cant. I know it's right but I'm not sure if they wanted a benefit of a cell membrane.

It was questions like that, that were just absolute bollocks ^

HugsiePie

0mega wrote: »

It was questions like that, that were just absolute bollocks ^

I said there was noneed for contractile vacuole

yoppo

The exam was worded very badly. Especially question one. The spaces they left were tiny. I could have given 5 points on each one. Didn't have a clue what they want! I'll find out in August I suppose!

HugsiePie

I've worked out my score, I think, didn't do as bad as I thought (I think )

11Charlie11

HugsiePie wrote: »

I've worked out my score, I think, didn't do as bad as I thought (I think )

That's good how did u do it like did u use your book for the answers and guess the usual marking scheme

HugsiePie

11Charlie11 wrote: »

That's good how did u do it like did u use your book for the answers and guess the usual marking scheme

Well I googled the stuff I wasn't sure of, and I divided the marks by the marking scheme but when for eg. the give 24 marks to part b and threes 6 parts in part b, I divided the marks equally, nut in actual fact it wont be done like that so my score will be lower than what I added up, but hopefully not as low as I thought it was going to be.