Well, if you've done chem paper you could have notice that questions were not leading questions. For example a leading question would be "Calculate molecular mass of..........if by mass it contains 70% of oxygen and 30% hydrogen", but in chem paper 2 there were questions that had many useless details, e.g history of Egyptian metal - Sb2S3. Also question 1 was narrative, meaning that they included many details that were not needed to solve questions, thus some people found very difficult to extract important info, plus the graph made question 1 a hateful, hateful, hateful way to begin and exam.
This is where the funny stuff comes in. Even though the syllabus was reduced in some parts, they expanded it in others, especially genetics parts. As an example 2002 question :
"Describe the consequence of a base substitution mutation with regards to sickle cell anaemia"
2002 mark scheme
mutation is a change in DNA sequence;
changes the mRNA during transcription;
changes the amino acid sequence;
substitution mutation / changes to one codon;
glutamic acid is changed to valine / GAG to GTG;
changes the shape of hemoglobin /
hemoglobin becomes less soluble and crystallizes out;
cannot carry oxygen as well;
red blood cells sickle / impairs blood flow;
causes other health problems / anemia / tiredness;
sickle cell anemia caused by two mutated recessive alleles
2009 specification question
"Explain the consequences of a base substitution mutation in relation to the processes of transcription and translation."
2009 mark scheme
mutation is a change in the genetic make-up;
base substitution mutation occurs when one (nitrogenous) base in DNA chain is
replaced by another;
this is a gene mutation / change in the base sequence of a gene;
effect of mutation ranges from no effect / no change in amino acid sequence to
drastic changes;
sickle-cell anaemia involves change in gene for one of polypeptides in
hemoglobin / Hb / HBA;
GAG has mutated to GTG (on DNA);
adenine replaced by thymine in DNA;
transcription of DNA produces the triplet GUG instead of GAG on mRNA;
one codon is different in mRNA;
new codon is for valine rather than glutamic acid;
tRNA brings amino acid to ribosome during translation;
different amino acid placed in polypeptide chain being formed by translation;
the two amino acids differ in solubility / have different properties / valine causes
HBS to be less soluble;
causes red blood cells to become sickle shaped / carry oxygen less efficiently;
HBS allele causes sickle-cell anaemia but gives resistance to malaria
So yeah, they expect more details from us now, then they used to.
Wider application, meaning that exam questions will either will combine two or more subjects into one question or they will create a question that contains information that you know, but will not have a strong link to the syllabus, but do not worry these questions tend to be on paper 1.