Edexcel igcse biology may 2012 exam discussion

I hate it when people do not so well in their exams but blame everyone else-such as the exam board-except themselves! If it is anyone to blame for their failure is only themselves!

Who are you talking about? No one "fails" and then blames the examination board. That's ridiculous. Even more ridiculous you seem to know some of "these people". Figment of your imagination.
Only people who pass has the right and does criticize how their paper is set and marked.

Reply 161

MAZADO

7

How did you find the genetics question?

Reply 162

g_l

Haha I forgot what phenotype was :s-smilie:

How did you find it?
OMG ANOTHER ONE ON FRIDAY...THEN CHEM/PHYS NEXT WEEK!!!!
I found the exam on the whole was...ok I suppose...But I spent too long trying to make my answers well rounded in the, like, 2 mark questions, so I almost ran outta time... Luckily I have extra time :P
And the last question was sh*te

Reply 163

Big-Daddy

13

Original post by StUdEnTIGCSE

Who are you talking about? No one "fails" and then blames the examination board. That's ridiculous. Even more ridiculous you seem to know some of "these people". Figment of your imagination.
Only people who pass has the right and does criticize how their paper is set and marked.

If I failed, I would definitely blame the exam board. :tongue:

Reply 164

Big-Daddy

13

Original post by Neli0

I really hate people who go on about how easy a test was but am i alone in thinking that was alot easier than past papers suggested it would be? and it didnt cover so much of the sylabbus :frown:

so much time revising wasted :frown:

also for the percentage question i rounded up to 11 because i didnt think they would want recurring 10.6, will i just lose the marks?

The answer was 10.622, I believe, so rounding it up to 11 is fine but not if you had 10.7 before (3 sig figs from 10.6).

Reply 165

pouloukos

1

Original post by Big-Daddy

The answer was 10.622, I believe, so rounding it up to 11 is fine but not if you had 10.7 before (3 sig figs from 10.6).

If i wrote -10.6 , how many marks will i lose out of the 2 marks given ?

Reply 166

12cheungjk1

Did we need a title for the graph?

Reply 167

Siiba

Hiii!
Did the exam yesterday :eek:

I found that there were a lot of 1,2 and 3 point questions. The graph and the last question were worth 6 and maybe one or two 5 point questions.
Also the graph was kinda hard, I left it till the end and then went back and did it...how did everyone else do the temperature?
Hope it went well for everyone! :biggrin:

Reply 168

g_l

Hey...I put the temp on the y axis (side) and the year on the x axis (bottom)

How did you guys do it?
I almost forgot to put a title! :P ( luckily i remembered to in the last few mins lol)
Always double check the paper...
This was posted from The Student Room's Android App on my GT-I5801

Reply 169

Siiba

Original post by g_l

Hey...I put the temp on the y axis (side) and the year on the x axis (bottom)

How did you guys do it?
I almost forgot to put a title! :P ( luckily i remembered to in the last few mins lol)
Always double check the paper...
This was posted from The Student Room's Android App on my GT-I5801

Yeah that's what I did with the graph but I didn't put the title...do you meant a title on top of top of the graph? When I did past papers, the mark scheme never said anything about a title...

Reply 170

ParanoidAnrdoid

heyy - does anyone know what sort of points they would have been looking for for the final questions? goddam those chickens... i just couldn't think of much to say! except that you get some outside, some inside, keep conditions the same and then measure growth gain...?

also, lots of my year are confused as to whether you needed a control - like, a dead chicken or something? freaky, i know, but some people wrote it and they do like to have controls?

Reply 171

starpupil

I didn't put a title either but I don't think you lose marks for that? How did you find the genetics questions - the last one in that section in particular?

Reply 172

Scamppy0101

The Graph and the last question were the ones that got me.......I was thinking CORMS, CORMS, CORMS, then realised I hand NO idea what CORMS stood for...Oops :smile:

Good Luck on Friday everyone!!

Reply 173

SupremeNunchucks

1

Any idea/estimates of the grade boundary for this paper guys?

Reply 174

starpupil

Original post by ParanoidAnrdoid

heyy - does anyone know what sort of points they would have been looking for for the final questions? goddam those chickens... i just couldn't think of much to say! except that you get some outside, some inside, keep conditions the same and then measure growth gain...?

also, lots of my year are confused as to whether you needed a control - like, a dead chicken or something? freaky, i know, but some people wrote it and they do like to have controls?

For the experiment question about chickens you needed to write:

- Repeat the measurements
- Time scale somewhere in you answer
- The independent and dependent variables (ie. Keep some inside and some outside and measure mass)
- Controlled variables (there are usually two marks for control, one biotic (living) and one abiotic (non-living) factor, so I wrote same species of chicken, same age, same food although you can't have an abiotic one because that is the thing being measured - I would have written temperature but I guess that is what is being changed by being outdoors, the question wasn't very specific which was annoying)

(Some people use CORMS to remember what you have to write for those 6 markers but I don't know what that stands for)

Reply 175

Siiba

Original post by Scamppy0101

The Graph and the last question were the ones that got me.......I was thinking CORMS, CORMS, CORMS, then realised I hand NO idea what CORMS stood for...Oops :smile:

Good Luck on Friday everyone!!

Yeah I found the graph and last question the trickiest. The other ones were ok except the independent and dependent variable question, because
I basically forgot what they meant even though I had just read about it.. fail. Lol

Reply 176

Scamppy0101

Original post by SupremeNunchucks

Any idea/estimates of the grade boundary for this paper guys?

I think that if you do triple (with paper 2) it will probably be something like 150/180, maybe 145. I don't think it was as hard as the January paper and that was 144/180.