AQA HUMAN BIOLOGY HBIO5 17th JUNE 2013

Thats the question I did, overall I thought the paper was okay...how about you?

I did 10b too, I thought you could write more for it than the one about carbon dioxide!
What did you write about?
I thought the paper was ok with the odd weird question in it!

Come away with complete mixed reactions which is disappointing because i was actually really looking forward to my essay (weird i know!) although i HATE the unit 5 specification, quadrants, transects and blue flag beaches.... really?

Normally when I do an exam I feel zoned in, hard to explain but kind of like don't even have to think the answer just come, but it just didn't happen.

In retrospect there were quite a few processes that you could score good cumulative marks in (allopatric speciation, allergic reaction, mutation causing resistance (in foxes) off the top of my head) although they did go on about the foxes and squirrels to much for my liking. Iv found with the two main A2 exams scoring 2s and 3s in every question soon adds up to a decent total.

Essay was so irritating looking back at past papers i had predicted that a question on evolution of organisms/hominids would come up as nothing like that had been asked, guessed this correctly in the Unit 2 exam evolution for 20 marks at the end (doing both a and as in one year). Or i was hoping for a question on either of my other pet subjects proteins or illness. I chose 10b think i was initially thrown by how crap i thought the essay titles were. The light bulb in my head didn't come on about co2 and breathing rate, heart rate, blood pressure ,photosynthesis, cell respiration, all actual biological process that i actually knew in depth.

Did 10b and my essay was boring me to write let alone read it. Relevance of my material to the question was skeptical at times. Kind of explained how humans are able to take advantage of other organisms so farming, selective breeding, GM crops, Transgenic animals mentioned the atlantic salmon with extra copy of growth hormone gene thats in the news recently hoping for a brownie point lol. Then how other organisms can also cause us harm bacteria viruses HIV threw in a mention of ecology of the gut 'friendly bacteria' at the end. All airy fairy nonsense really.

So yer bit disappointed but fingers crossed i did enough to reach my conditional target for uni.

Anyone else care to discuss details of the essay?

Also the question about why measure the dry mass of the plants? I put water mass? And the question on bronchitus and cv disease - guessed decreased gaseous exchange combined with decreased blood flow to heart die to thrombosis or artheroma means less oxygen reaching coronary arterys = myocardial infarction?