Edexcel Biology 1st June 6BIO101 new spec

YEP
but chromatin would have been better lol
wat other questions did you find hard?
x

The first question, part b. Although hopefully pretty much everyone found that hard. Comparing chloroplasts to mitochondria, what on earth are stalked particles?!? And the one that asked you why the plant should be grown at 2000m- I'm pretty sure the answer was a pretty simple one but it evaded me in the exam, I ended up writing way past the lines provided and it was only a 1 mark question! I had no idea what to say...

stalked particles are where ATP synthesis occurs ONLY in mitochondria
whilst for the 2000m question i just put that it was a reasonable atlitude to which you could compare lower and hgher altitudes
was really pedantic
and mostly how science works questions
i prepared so much for it but none of my preparation came into use...gutted
cant remember the other questions...can u?

stalked particles are where ATP synthesis occurs ONLY in mitochondria
whilst for the 2000m question i just put that it was a reasonable atlitude to which you could compare lower and hgher altitudes
was really pedantic
and mostly how science works questions
i prepared so much for it but none of my preparation came into use...gutted
cant remember the other questions...can u?

Heh not particularly. Erm I *think* I put stalked particles were only in mitochondria, but I can't exactly remember. I definitely put that chloroplasts had circular DNA and a matrix, but not crista- I hope thats right! I would just check but I've buried all my notes away- out of sight, out of mind- in order to focus on my other exams.

It didn't surprise me that lots of my revision didn't come into use, as the same thing happened on the January module. What did surprise me was how little there was on ecology/biodiversity/endemism/conservation etc. Considering it was such a massive part of the unit it barely appeared. I remember a graph drawing question, marks like that are just laughable. There was also one on antimicrobial properties of plants that I found a breeze as my revision guide gave me twice as many points as they asked for in the exam and I did the experiment only just over a month ago.

sorry to disappoint you but chloroplasts have no circular DNA. But yes for the matrix
and i agree, i did so much revision and preparation for this exam an when you get bombarded with questions that werent even based on theory then wtf? The only question from Topic 4 that i could remember was labelling sclerechyma and the xylem?!
There was nothing else present and all were graphs and crap for Unit 1 and a bit more theory for unit 2.
But it really begs the question of why the questions did not involve all the thoery that the specification set us out to learn? wat was the point?!

If it was an exam to test our 'skills' then they should have done something COMPLETELY different logical with the damn syllabus! But its a sodding science exam, that should ask theory with reason and logic for each answer. It was the dumbest paper i have ever seen.

sorry to disappoint you but chloroplasts have no circular DNA. But yes for the matrix
and i agree, i did so much revision and preparation for this exam an when you get bombarded with questions that werent even based on theory then wtf? The only question from Topic 4 that i could remember was labelling sclerechyma and the xylem?!
There was nothing else present and all were graphs and crap for Unit 1 and a bit more theory for unit 2.
But it really begs the question of why the questions did not involve all the thoery that the specification set us out to learn? wat was the point?!

Are you sure that Chloroplast doesn't have DNA? Or do you mean just circular DNA?

Because it does have DNA along with mitochondria.

You're right actually. I just looked it up on Wikipedia, phew! "The material within the chloroplast is called the stroma...and contains one or more molecules of small circular DNA."

Apparantly Edexcel have apologised for the question on chloroplasts as it wasn't on our specification. They're going to assess how well candidates have performed on it before deciding whether they are going to include the marks for that question or ignore them.
(apparantly this has been said on some edexcel teachers' forum, according to my biology teachers. A shedload of teachers around the country have kicked off about it because there's a big difference between the context and concept led approaches.)

Out of curiosity, do the teachers get to see the exam papers the same time we do?

Out of curiosity, do the teachers get to see the exam papers the same time we do?

In my Drama exam my teacher came round during the exam and clarified a question for us. Well it technically wasn't telling us what to do, surely that's at least a little bit out of order?

i wouldn't be complaining!