AQA A - level biology graphical questions

Im really struggling with graphical questions such as the explain ones compare and describe can I please get some tips or help ASAP please

First thing I do is look at the command word. It's really easy with the graphical ones to get no marks because of not answering the question. If it says describe the shape, describe the trend or just describe the graph, just say what you see. Make sure you don't just say the shape, but what that means in terms of the variables e.g. From 0 to 40 degress C as temperature increases, rate of enzyme action increases. However after 40 degress C the rate of enzyme action rapidly decreases to zero. It's not asked me to explain anything, and it just goes to show how difficult it can be to answer these properly as even while writing the example, I really was tempted to talk about the enzyme denaturing. This will gain no marks unless it asks you to explain the graph. Explaining just means you need to use your knowledge. If you've revised all the facts you need to apply them here and say why each thing happens e.g. the rate of enzyme action increases initially with temperature due to the greater kinetic energy of both substrate and enzyme molecules, so the frequency of collisions and E-S complexes forming increases. Compare will mean you're given two sets of data and asked to describe any similarities and differences. With these it's very important to compare one thing at a time and use 'In A it looks like this whereas in B it looks like this (because...)' This is how it will be set out in the mark scheme. There can also be evaluation questions eg look at some data, here's a conclusion. Is it right or wrong? Generally you can't say yes or no you need to argue both to get full marks. The same mark points come up all the time. The question will be out of 4 or 5 but there can be up to 10 different mark points as most are suggestions as to why you can't be certain about the statement eg no statistical test, drug tested in animals not humans, only one repeat, small sample size etc. With these questions the statement given will always be correct at first glance, so I would always start with "The statement initially seems to be correct as..." stating why they've come to that conclusion from the data. Hope this helps

Thank you so so much for this I really struggle with the graphical questions cause I never use the right terminology I’ll know the content but not the terminology if that makes sense , do you have any other tips for Aqa a level biology

For Paper 1 I would say just do enough past papers so you know the facts because half of the marks are fact recall/ knowledge based in that paper (it's always like this, AQA say so in the spec). Reading mark schemes helps you learn the common terms they need for each area to gain marks. Application questions and graphical questions are common in all papers, but especially 2 and 3, so search online for some of these questions. Miss Estruch has some free ones on her website. Good luck

Yeah I’m going through all the AS papers for bio and doing all the past A-level ones tomorrow

what do you mean sorry as in do them over the next few days rather than doing them all at once ?

Yeah don't do them at once. You won't have time in one day! I would set yourself a timetable for each one you've not done and just do once every few days. Try timing it so that you do eg a paper 1 a day or two days before the real exam and a paper 2 before the real paper 2 etc. That way you wont use up all your resources too quickly because at the end of the day, those are the only real papers you have to emulate the real exam. I'd make them last