Edexcel A2 Biology Unit 5 (6BIO5) - 22/06/2011- OFFICIAL THREAD !

I have a general query about the A2 synoptic elements & was wondering what everyone else thought...

Most of you that use the student A2 book will be aware of the way it links some of the topics to last year's AS units, for e.g. referring to 'AS Biology pages 200-3' for further information on so and so. Are we supposed to assume that the AS topics/sections they refer to in this way are the ONLY areas they will make synoptic links to? What have teachers told you?

Thanks in advance

As far as I am aware, from the information from my teacher, synoptic links may be to ANY parts of the 6BI01, 6BI02 and 6BI04 units; however the strength of the link, and to what extent the link will be, is unknown

Got the mock back for this paper (Jan 2010) and got 78% which is pretty good. It was a pretty easy paper, although I made some very silly mistakes...

I have a general query about the A2 synoptic elements & was wondering what everyone else thought...

Most of you that use the student A2 book will be aware of the way it links some of the topics to last year's AS units, for e.g. referring to 'AS Biology pages 200-3' for further information on so and so. Are we supposed to assume that the AS topics/sections they refer to in this way are the ONLY areas they will make synoptic links to? What have teachers told you?

Thanks in advance

Have been given two more sets of questions for the pre-release material that've been devised by my teachers. May post them up at some point soon.

Most candidates seemed able to make reasonable attempts at questions on all of the topics tested and there was no noticeable area where a widespread lack of knowledge was apparent. However, where questions expected some knowledge from the AS units to be used, a number of candidates seemed to be uncertain of the appropriate terminology. It is important that candidates are aware that they can be expected to select facts, principles and concepts from both AS and A2 specifications at this level. Many of the topics in Unit 4 follow on from those covered in units 1 and 2 at AS. For example, in question 4, a basic understanding of the nature a gene and mutation is used to lead up to the effect that a change in an environmental factor can have on allele frequency. This synoptic concept has also been used in question 7 where knowledge from Unit 2 about the structure of cellulose has been placed in the context of digestion in cattle.

Can i be really pesky and ask you to do just that =D all we've done in class is look for links in the syllabus!

Ok here are the questions our teacher set us about the pre-release material, as promised.

...........

If you want the answers then I can pm them to you.

Hope this helps!