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Does anyone know what practical tests there are in A2 biology?

ElectronDonor

Im going to need a basic outline not the questions?

Reply 1

TSR Jessica

Sorry you've not had any responses about this. :frown:

Are you sure you’ve posted in the right place? Posting in the specific Study Help forum should help get responses. :redface:

I'm going to quote in Tank Girl now so she can move your thread to the right place if it's needed. :h:

Spoiler

Reply 2

Tank Girl

Hello!

Sorry that you haven't had any replies yet, I've moved this to the Biology forum, so you should get more responses now :smile:

Reply 3

Eloades11

Original post by ElectronDonor

Im going to need a basic outline not the questions?

It completely depends on what exam board you're currently on. It's been a while since I've studied A-level biology, but as far as I know, AQA and OCR both have practical examinations in the form of ISA's and EMPA's, whilst Edexcel has coursework/issue report.

So assuming you're on AQA or OCR, it's likely that you'll have to perform a miniature experiment. For AQA, they like to test you on your knowledge of how to set up a fair trial, how to collect accurate data, how to minimise control variables and whether the data you collect is representative of the population. They will also test you on your definitions of key words in biology, such as accuracy, reliability, validity ect... These typically require a good understanding of experimental designs and memorising definitions. You'll also need good knowledge and understanding of statistical tests and why we use them.

To get a good idea of these experiments, you should have access to past papers and experiments performed by previous years. This should give you a reasonable idea of what to expect come the exam. I think the exam I had was that we had to build a chamber made of paper, and then insert maggots into the entrance and make observations about which direct they travel in the chamber.

Your other thread asked how to do well in these exams. The answer is a lot or practice to get a feeling of what sort of questions will be asked and how to answer them. You'll need to do a lot of revision to understand the principles behind the exam topic. Something which will help is by having a copy of the syllabus readily accessible so you know what sort of things you can expect to be tested on.