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Who found the depth biology OCR A hard?

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Reply 20
Original post by APersonYo
6 marker on enzymes was beautiful if you knew what you were doing ( I DID NOT)


You had to discuss lock & key as well as conformation change right? Then say about increased temp > more k.e. > more collisions of sufficient energy > more ES complexes form etc. Then after optimum temp it denatures etc.
crazy hard.
Reply 22
Original post by blugg
You had to discuss lock & key as well as conformation change right? Then say about increased temp > more k.e. > more collisions of sufficient energy > more ES complexes form etc. Then after optimum temp it denatures etc.


I said barely anything relevant
I think the paper wasn't too bad actually, but I found the very last page quite difficult. :/


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Reply 24
Original post by APersonYo
I said barely anything relevant


I skipped several questions, especially the practical technique bs if that makes you feel better lol
Reply 25
Original post by APersonYo
Dropped 2 marks in my core 2 maths paper :wink: Yeah, I'll just do a few past papers for chemistry then and I'll revise S1 like crazy before the S1 exam. What examboards do you do? I do edexcel for maths and OCR A for chemistry


Wow that's amazing!! I'm more stronger on the lit/humanties side :lol:

I don't do maths at all! Yeah I calculated I have about 19 hours of chem papers to go through. RIP. Then there's also the marking bit and going over stuff I get wrong :frown:

The next 68 hours are gonna be long af :cry2:
Reply 26
Original post by blugg
I skipped several questions, especially the practical technique bs if that makes you feel better lol


That exam tested somebody's ability to ******** not biologise
Reply 27
Original post by Cherx
Wow that's amazing!! I'm more stronger on the lit/humanties side :lol:

I don't do maths at all! Yeah I calculated I have about 19 hours of chem papers to go through. RIP. Then there's also the marking bit and going over stuff I get wrong :frown:

The next 68 hours are gonna be long af :cry2:


At least chemistry will give straight-forward questions unlike biology
Original post by blugg
You had to discuss lock & key as well as conformation change right? Then say about increased temp > more k.e. > more collisions of sufficient energy > more ES complexes form etc. Then after optimum temp it denatures etc.


I thought it wanted us to talk about the induced fit, or is that conformation change? To include how the tertiary structure of the active site changes to weaken the bonds within the substrate, lowering its activation energy during transition state AND because more substrate have energy greater than or equal to the activation energy of the reaction, the rate of the reaction increase.

Am I wrong? Then crap.


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I do AQA but its reassuring that other boards are in the same situation too! We also had very application based questions and don't even get me started on the practical q's!!
Reply 30
Original post by APersonYo
At least chemistry will give straight-forward questions unlike biology


Chemistry is just beautiful because its logical
Reply 31
Original post by blugg
Chemistry is just beautiful because its logical


i know right? No vague questions? And heck even if a question is hard, you can just think through it logically
Reply 32
Original post by MsDanderson
I thought it wanted us to talk about the induced fit, or is that conformation change? To include how the tertiary structure of the active site changes to weaken the bonds within the substrate, lowering its activation energy during transition state AND because more substrate have energy greater than or equal to the activation energy of the reaction, the rate of the reaction increase.

Am I wrong? Then crap.


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They wanted us to discuss lock and key too (pointless I know) as it was mentioned in the question. Yeah I think you would have picked up the marks. You probably didn't need to specifically discuss Ea as that isn't really in the spec but you are still using the idea that substrate molecules have a greater energy etc
Reply 33
Original post by APersonYo
i know right? No vague questions? And heck even if a question is hard, you can just think through it logically


A perfect example would be the equilibrium conditions question in the breadth paper, probably the most logical, easy topics to pick up marks on and one they always test!
Flopped the pesky cell cycle questions:angry:

Like the 6 markers but hated a lot if 1 and 2 markers
Original post by blugg
They wanted us to discuss lock and key too (pointless I know) as it was mentioned in the question. Yeah I think you would have picked up the marks. You probably didn't need to specifically discuss Ea as that isn't really in the spec but you are still using the idea that substrate molecules have a greater energy etc


Yeah I talked about the lock and key too. Phew

Loads of people keep talking about collision rate, but I'm sure the question asked to suggest how the mechanisms explain the enzyme action


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Reply 36
It asked for both and was a fairly open ended question, hence the huge answer space
Reply 37
Not a good paper, simply because the paper didn't cover the significant and more applied context such as immunity, transpiration, DNA replication or DNA translation and transcription, THE HEART in general such as coordination and initiation of the heart, cardiac cycle...
They are putting a lot of content but not testing much of it. Well, that's the key thing about Biology but it annoys me a lot.

Enzyme 6 marker was beautiful but they wanted us to cover the effect on temperature and the two enzyme mechanisms (induced fit and lock and key hypothesis) which was a bit unfair. It should have been higher than that surely.

Chi-test or whatever is called shouldn't appear in our paper, as it is for A2, but the exam board did help us with that table so I cannot really argue about that.

For the chitin question did you say that it is similar to amylose? As amylose also contains a 1-4 glycosidic bond.. Other than that I did say it s held together by glycosidic bonds and hydrogen bonding which undergoes condensation reaction and joins the monosaccharides to form a polysaccharide. It is used for energy source and storage.
(edited 7 years ago)
Reply 38
Original post by blugg
You had to discuss lock & key as well as conformation change right? Then say about increased temp > more k.e. > more collisions of sufficient energy > more ES complexes form etc. Then after optimum temp it denatures etc.


Yeah I said that but I am certain that the enzyme mechanisms were lock and key as well as induced fit model? I am not sure if conformational change is associated with it.
Reply 39
Original post by oni176
Yeah I said that but I am certain that the enzyme mechanisms were lock and key as well as induced fit model? I am not sure if conformational change is associated with it.


My bad, I meant to say induced fit and then how conformational change is the main mechanism of the induced fit model

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